Insanely-active headfi user, moedawg140’s objection to incessant reader demands to compare TOTL earphone against TOTL rivals, is spot on. A non-engineering review is written from opinion. No matter how assiduous, extended comparisons between earphone A and earphone B reveal nothing but personal bias; more colloquially, they reveal that we all hear different. Obsessing over and acquiescing to reader demands is a never-ending, soul-destroying campaign of self-flagellation and risk. Self flagellation: kowtowing to a single demand necessarily insinuates more of the same in the future. Risk: maintaining a fleet of TOTL earphones, amps, DACs, or DAPs, is expensive both to the wallet and to the attic.
Below is an excerpt from moedawg140’s harangue in the Campfire Audio Andromeda/Nova thread:
I would compare with other TOTL (I didn't write that review, but will on the Andromeda in the near future, but is applicable in this regard), but when you do, nothing but crickets. When you don't, you get the complainers asking for (insert IEM) to be compared. Complainers mean those that only ask for comparisons, with no thanks in their post and no props (this can include thank you comments, thumbs up, etc.), and, if you do fulfill their request, crickets; also, those that own the requested equipment but will not send it to you to compare if you request them to because you know that they own what they want compared by reading their profile.
Then you compare with TOTL IEMs (at least the ones you think are a good fit to be compared, or have listened back to back preferably), and you get complainers who only ask for the IEMs they want (which is fine, but when it's only that and that every single time, it sounds like complaining). Especially when you do compare, the result is that you get crickets.
Requests are never ending. Filing them important or inane is a vital skill. I receive request upon request to compare less expensive items to more expensive items, many of which I will never own. Often, I am asked to compare trans-genre items: an earphone vs. a headphone, or a digital-only DAC to an amp, for instance, and sometimes both to a DAP.
What commonality share an open-back headphone and a sealed earphone or a DAP and a DAC? Price? Colour? Brand? Flagship status? Debut date?
Readers have even demanded midrange liquidity or sound stage height comparisons between headphones, as if my word - nothing more than my opinion - really matters. Most reviewers understand their privileged positions. Sometimes we get to keep samples. Sometimes we purchase them at discounts. Sometimes we get to borrow stuff that hasn’t hit market. Many of us get to handle gear that most people don’t. Whatever the case, our impressions about an earphone, or a headphone, or a DAP, DAC, amp, etcetera, are just words attached to personal biases. They are not data. More often than not, our biases conflict with the biases of others. Eschewing qualifiers such as better or worse for more, or less, is a good idea. But without a proper acoustically isolated measuring setup - and the knowhow to use it -, reviewers's words are assholes- which like opinions, everyone possesses.
Reviewers: write about what you have, and what you like. Let the reader sort it out. Headphones or earphones that share some common trait or counterpoint with the subject of your review may be helpful to mention. But going out of your way to detail the differences between devices that either you don’t use, or like, is pissing into the wind.
Review what you like when you like. Don’t give in to tje idiocy of incessant - and lazy - demands for your opinion. Let people make up their own minds: about the product, about your own biases, about theirs, and most importantly, about how to spend their own money. Do not encourage the growth of opinion cults, which are planted in opinion forums and on blogs, watered by he-said she-said back and forth, and pruned by acquiescence to reader demands.
Relevant links:
Campfire Audio: Andromeda
Head-Fi: Campfire Audio - Introducing 2 new models Hello Andromeda and Nova
ohm image: Campfire Audio Andromeda - excitement engine
DAR: Burning up in Tokyo with Campfire Audio’s Andromeda, Nova
headpie: Campfire Audio Andromeda Review