Inside Consumer Reports: Controversies surrounding the MacBook Pro and HomePod

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  • Reply 41 of 42
    joefrat said:
    I never believed they are harboring some grudge.  I am sure they believe what they publish.  What bothers me is the way they (along with many media outlets) dramatize their findings.  It appears they are trying to drum up interest in themselves by releasing a dramatic headline.  That is what I do not recall happening in the Consumer Reports of the past.  Just like as was mentioned in this article: the dramatic headline brings the reader to a paywall to find out the reality of the details.  That, to me is not what I would expect from the impartial Consumer Reports of the past.
    Yes, exactly.... it's telling that they now talk about their "story coming out", not their "test results coming out". I've lost a fair bit of respect for them. I didn't always agree with their product assessments, but at least prior to the past 5-10 years I didn't have the feeling they were sensationalizing things. Not so much these days...
  • Reply 42 of 42
    Eons ago, I sold consumer audio.  Consumer Reports was incredibly frustrating.  They had no idea what they were doing when it came to understanding audio equipment or appreciating sound quality.  Two specific cases came to mind:  1) they reviewed a couple of pieces of relatively audiophile gear, including the Crown "straight line 2" pre-amplifier.  CR actually commented on how they loved the tone controls on the Crown pre-amp. 

    Clue:  It's a "straight line" pre-amp.  It says so in the name.  There are no tone controls.  The unit had an input selector, a power button, and a volume control.  And that was it.
    Their comment was both oddly specific and exactly wrong, both at the same time.

    case 2: they reviewed a mess of cheap consumer integrated amps / receivers.  Their pick, by a large margin: the Akai AA-R22.  I still remember the model number, because we ordered a ton of them and sold them like hotcakes.  And then they came back. Every. Single. One.  There was a problem with one of the ICs they'd used to build the thing and they all failed, completely and catastrophically, after a couple of hours of use.  I remember being floored that one didn't get returned immediately, and it turned out that the buyer picked it up and left the country, then came back a month later, plugged it in, and it fried itself.  

    The sound quality of the receiver was horrible - decent midrange, tinny high end, and zero bass - but CR actually had a call-out box in their review (it was their "best buy" and we couldn't talk people out of buying them) describing the gee-whiz fluorescent display as "the shape of things to come" in audio.  Because, you know, blinky lights = better sound.  

    Every time CR reviews something I know about, I'm frustrated by how shallow they are.
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