Do you believe Internet Reviews?

[SFDMALEX]

And by this I mean hardware reviews in particular.

Let's take speakers for instance. Few months back I was shopping for a set of 6.1 speakers for my PC. Being an audiophile along with my father I did not get this for music or movies. I just got it for games. If you havent tried a game like RavenShield with a 5.1 system. I'm telling you now. Its a completly different experiance. Anyway back on topic. So prior to going to the bloody mall(which I hate) I read a couple of review online just to have an idea of what is worth looking at. So I read about all these Creative, Logitech, Klipsch....and I saw a pattern. The more expensive the speakers, the better the reviewer ranks them. OK. Makes sense in way. So I head off to the store and go straight to the Klipsh 5.1 system which had a price tag of over half a grand. Sounds good. Nice bass,,,not the plump shit you usualy hear on PC subs, the highs were quite crisp, the mid range was OK,,,but to be honest I never found the mids to be very good on any PC speaker system. Anyway....who am I kidding. Im not spending 500+ on PC speakers.

So I jump straight to the creatives(which had very good reviews) turn em up and it sounds as if the whole system has a towel over it. And the sound is just wooden. Lound but wooden(dont remeber the name of the system. it was a 5.1).

Then I jump to the logitechs. Guess what? Very cheap, 185$. U turn em up, and I hear a nice balance. Everything is a good except the highs could be better. Nice mid range, impressive bass...Good overall package for my needs...

I go online check these speakers and the reviews are not so great. Well Im not fucking retarted and my ears are better then most so who are these people kidding? I checked through a lot of sets and the logis were on top with those friggin expensive Klipsch.

So from my observations 80% of review online are done by lame ass people who dont know shit and the only thing they do know how to distinguish is how loud something is. And coming to a conclusion online people rate speakers by price and by "600WATTS" sticker on the box.

And this is not the only case. There is whole bunch of other things that people rate in the same way. Some reviews I read are just hillarious. For instance I had over 4FFB steering wheels. I have read some crazy reviews were people were claiming that the best stuff is the most expensive...well it is not true. Lets Take the MOMO Force logi wheel and the MOMO Racing. People are saying that the MOMO Force has a better force feedback then the Racing...THEY USE THE SAME chips. Slightly different motors in terms of power output which on the Racing wheel can be adjusted to produce the same effect as the Force by adding 10% of the power slider in the wheel software...
This is also the case with regular amps and such.


So my question is. Do you guys really believe the reviews you read online? To me it seems that there are only few sites out there who know what they are talking about and the other 80% is just bunch of regular Joes who try to sound proffesional.

[bmwfreak]

I agree with you. Most reviewers are poorly paid anyway, and are not usually up to the task of actually giving an accurate portrayal of product performance. They end up sounding more like salespeople rather than unbiased reviewers.

Best way is to test products yourself, keep an open mind about what you might see/hear at a store, and choose according to your own senses. Or talk to mates/shop owners who know their stuff, and you KNOW you can trust when you ask for an opinion/evaluation of things you are thinking of getting.

This has been my experience with buying computer stuff too. COnclusion? Go with what you hear, see, feel. NOt by the printed INternet-spread word. Except for maybe Graphic Cards.

[RC45]

Online reviewers are like assholes - and every one has an opinion... or something like that... ;)

[AlienDB7]

I can't agree more with you guys. I bought some hardware base solely on internet reviews and I really regret the purchases. Luckily they were very low end generic parts so the damage was minimum. Although I did recently purchase a set of Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 without listening. But then I got it for CAD$200 so I took the risk ;)

[sentra_dude]

Yea, I definitely agree, internet reviews suck...but what do you expect, it is the internet, I take everything I read on the internet with a grain of salt anyways.

[possessed_beaver]

Online reviewers are like assholes - and every one has an opinion... or something like that... ;)

hahaha yes that makes sence :?

not sure if any of you have seen jay and silent bob strike back - at the end with all the people that made fake reviews about jay and silent bob, and how they would beat them up.

in my opinon you have to look at a few reviews, and make an average out of a few different opinions.

[TT]

Yes I agree... they can give general idea on objective points like technical specs and such.. but when it comes to the review itself, I still think it's better to look somewhere else..

I admit sometimes I check sites like dooyoo where you just see owners opinion and that could help, although of course again, subjective...

[SPEEDCORE]

Speakers are hard to compare cause its based on someone's ear, what one person thinks sounds clear and crisp can be dull to another esp as there is such a vast range of speakers and prices. Best thing is test them yourself :)