Maybe it is the nature of the beast, but some amp or guitar could be the best thing ever in some reviews and others is that it is the worst and it killed a few family members. It drives me crazy. I know Amazon products or any other retailer has the same type of reviews. Of course the worst are the ones where the reviewer received some type of discount for providing the review. Of course people will typically say something good then. Those people should be shot. Ok, I feel better now...
Try reading many reviews, that way you eventually get a feel for who is a fanboy and who is giving an honest opinion.
I always like the one that says they have been playing guitar for three months now and think they are an expert.
I've read so many gear reviews in the last 20 years to know better than read gear reviews. The only purpose for any product reviews for me, is to see if there's a pattern of the same issue(s) reported. If 20 people out of 100 say the transformer crapped out, I'm not going to buy the product. Otherwise, the majority of product reviews are from honeymooners as far as I'm concerned. I'd bet no one owns a product they bought from Amazon for 3 years and then posts a review. No, they take the thing out of the box, light it up and post a review of their joy or disappointment within hours of receiving it. Yep. Here's a product review for you: I bought a Marshall "Slash" SL5 in June of 2013; it's been a great little amp, but it weighs more than 5 fat chicks on a stick.
2010: Vintage Modern, "sounds thin", "sounds muddy", "hard to dial in a decent tone". 2020: "A future classic", "most versatile Marshall", "can't make a bad tone".
I try to read into the level of the reviewer..............especially when they're selling. Opinions are like assholes.
No, they all start with "Hey what's up YouTube?!". Well, I'm not YouTube. YouTube is YouTube. I'm not YouTube. Are they speaking to me or YouTube? WTH does "You Tube" even mean anymore? Am I some kind of tube? If so, why, and what kind of tube am I? And then they proceed to spend 50% of the video unboxing, showing instruction booklets and yacking before I ever get to see the frigging gear and I'm lucky if I ever get to hear the treble pickup on the gain channel for the last 10 seconds.
I apply the same analytical approach. If there is an observable pattern I avoid it. Thank goodness we got a fix for the JCM2000 amps.
“Today I’m reviewing the XXXXXX amplifier. I’ll be in drop C tuning and running through a delay, chorus, flanger, tremolo, phaser, fuzz, OD, EQ, and a wah...” I HATE that guy.
You just never know where threads like this will go. There's just too many silly sonnoma batches around here.
When it’s talking instead of playing. The review is dead to much yack and no tones , I want to hear the product, not the history of it. Cheers