About the Reviewer’s Reference Thread
The purpose of this thread is to provide a common location to allow reviewers to post information they want to reference (i.e. link to, rather than including inline) across multiple reviews. This will help keep individual reviews more concise, while still allowing the inclusion, by reference, of appropriately detailed information on repetitive subjects.
Common occurrences of this include:
- Equipment Used (pictures are encouraged)
- Music Auditioning Playlists
- Measurement Rig Setup/Conditions
- Reviewer Preferences/Biases
- Disclaimers
- Technology/Feature Descriptions common to Multiple Products (e.g. MQA, ADEL, DSD etc.)
Use of this thread is optional and provided for convenience/consistency.
If you do decide to use this thread, then please observe the following:
Equipment Used Entries
These should include links to the equipment being referenced and, where possible, a picture of the unit in your system (pictures can be added/amended over time and do not have to accompany an initial entry). Links may tie back to the original manufacturer’s site or headphone.com or Amazon (using “The HEADPHONE Community” affiliate link, as detailed in the reviewer guidelines).
If the equipment used varies with later reviews, which is typical as systems change and evolve, you should make a new post and reference that instead of editing earlier posts - this preserves the details of the original references as used in the referencing review.
Adding more detail, adding pictures, or editing such a referenced post, without changing the actual equipment list, can be done at any time and in the original post.
Referencing Other People’s Entries
In some cases, it might be desirable to reference an existing technical description of some technology shared between an item you are reviewing that someone else has already detailed. For example, for MQA or ADEL or DSD or some other technology.
I think this should be encouraged. As such, if you see such a post from me in this thread, on a topic you want to reference in your own review, feel free to link to it (do NOT copy and paste its content into your text). For other people’s content, you should ask first.
Multiple Reference Posts for Existing Subjects
It is perfectly fine if you want to write up your own description of a technology (etc.) and reference that in your reviews or posts. This means there may be multiple descriptions of a given technology or subject.
This is expected.
But this is NOT the thread for opinion pieces (see below).
Technical Material (including Erroneous Descriptions & Opinions)
If you do make a post here describing a technology or feature, please ensure sure it is both technically accurate and factual and does not become an “opinion piece”.
Opinion is welcome, but belongs in the main body of the review itself or in a general discussion thread on the topic at hand!
We reserve the write to edit, remove, or redirect references to inaccurate or inappropriate entries here.
Discussions and Non-Reviewers
There is no issue with general discussion around posts made in this thread. It will be common for members to want to ask questions about gear used in auditions, listening lists, or on technology issues. However, broader, ongoing, discussions about specific technologies should be carried into the appropriate primary threads.
Please keep this thread free of memes and reaction posts. Pictures should be limited to gear references and/or supporting technical illustrations. Keep things on topic and with as high a signal-to-noise ratio as possible. Posts going against these requests for this thread will likely be deleted without warning, rather than moved.
For example, if you want to talk about your opinion on, say, MQA then that belongs in one of the primary MQA threads. Posts on this thread should be limited to accurate descriptions of the technology.
NOTE: If this thread is abused, then it will get locked down so that only reviewers can post in it.
