You need to find sources with a) the fewest conflicts of interest and b) the most accurate information.

Information vs Opinion

As the great Plato once said:

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Opinions are everywhere and, quite honestly, most aren’t worth the ‘paper’ they are written on. I often speak with advice seekers who tell me:

“Mike, I read in a forum that I should buy XYZ, what do you think…?”

The overwhelming problem is that most folks in forums a) can’t help you, but b) think they can, leading to rabbit holes of wasted time, energy and money. It’s worth knowing that real experts and specialists rarely get involved in public forums related to their work. The vast majority of commenters lack the knowledge and experience to help themselves, let alone others!

As a result, forums are often filled with subjective, regurgitated, conflicting opinions, technically incorrect ‘facts’ and pseudo-scientific nonsense. I avoid them entirely, except for private, technical forums I’ve been part of for years.

Then there are retailers, often blinded by marketing, unable to parse the technical facts and heavily conflicted by the need to sell you equipment. This isn’t a judgment, merely an observation that I challenge anyone to refute honestly.

There are a few good retailers, but most don’t know which information is important/right/wrong. They all sell competing products, many of which they know to be junk, leading to more rabbit holes of wasted time, energy and money.

This conflict of interest is a huge problem, the elephant in the room, yet people turn to retailers for advice, which is ridiculous when you think about it. It’s like visiting a car dealership, asking what brand of car they think you should buy and expecting an unbiased response. Silly, right?!

Good Sources

Finding the best advice is quite easy when you understand that this relies on finding the best sources of information. There are a couple of things one needs to qualify as a good source:

1. The fewest conflicts of interest. No retailer who sells products can genuinely offer you impartial advice about equipment they don’t sell and are not trying to sell you. They need to sell products they offer, a fundamental show-stopper in terms of conflicts of interest.
2. The most real, hands-on experience with the equipment you are interested in. There’s a reason I own and have owned a range of high-end digital and analog sources, amplifiers, speakers, etc and I work on this stuff every day. That means I own and listen to equipment most have only dreamt of owning and listening to. I don’t get my information from anywhere other than direct hands-on experience. This is extraordinarily rare.

These filters rule out most sources of advice as useful, trustworthy ones, so be careful. Our advisory service is one widely respected, dependable source. There are others, but there just aren’t many.

The reasons are simple: I’m a technical specialist, not a retailer. I have no conflicts of interest in recommending hi-fi equipment and discussing how to improve your hi-fi system because I receive no commissions or kickbacks and I don’t need to sell equipment at all. I also don’t need people to seek my advice as this is a tiny fraction of my business.

Yes, you must pay for my time in the same way you would other specialists such as a doctor or lawyer, but you get a completely different calibre of information that satisfied customers from around the world greatly appreciate.