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... Or many Senn's, AT's, Ultra's, Grado's, etc...
I would agree with you if this were a site dedicated to sound system reviews.
Uh... that's kind of the subset that the [H] is there for. It's there for the enthusiasts. The [H] does power supply reviews the way I would want them to be done, and I've been building my own computers and computers for close friends of mine since 1995. The machines I build typically become obsolete before anything in them fails, and are often still used second-hand for several years after. Why? I'm very selective about my component choices and I'm very meticulous in my build process. It's why my stuff does not break. I can't afford for it to fail, so I build it right the first time. What Kyle does with the power supply reviews makes it a lot easier for me to know that a power supply is made from quality parts and isn't going to fail. The review process the [H] undertakes is exactly why I trust their reviews more than other sites that are less intensive. Nobody was performing torture tests and component-level inspections for consumer-grade power units prior to the [H].
So... because there's a lot of things to sell in the world people shouldn't do in-depth reviews?
Do you even understand the purpose of a review? Here, I'll explain it for you. It's to provide an opinion so that others can make a more informed decision before making a purchase. How something sounds is going to be subjective. Explaining the test criteria provides context for subjective opinions. Hooking an oscilloscope to headphone A and headphone B and measuring waveforms isn't going to tell me how something sounds. It may tell me that this frequency has a higher amplitude on headphone A than on headphone B, but that's it. It's like measuring the lumens and response time on pixels on a TV. It gives me a lot of technical data that may be accurate, but is functionally useless. I have to see the whole picture in motion to know if I'm going to like it or not. As an example, there was a discussion a while back in which I participated in where a fellow was looking at the differences between plasma and LCD screens. Several of us on the forum did our best to educate him on the differences and which we preferred personally. I like plasma screens and CRT's and hate LCD's as a personal preference. This fellow ended up disliking plasmas and preferring LCD's. Which of us was right and which was wrong? It's a matter of preference. That's the whole reason there's more than one kind of product. Now as for what a sound engineer wound think... are YOU a sound engineer? If not, then you have no business speaking about what sound engineers would or would not say. If so, then please, enlighten us on how you think the [H] should be doing their reviews from a sound engineer's perspective.
Are you sure we read the same review? These headphones look like they're overpriced, overhyped, cheap crap to me, and that's from reading the review. I expected they'd be crap based on previous rapper-labeled headphones, and this supported what I expected. I won't be plunking down any money on these, nor will I be recommending them to anyone. Now, if the [H] had reached a different conclusion and said these kicked AKG's and Sennheiser's best headphones' asses with clear sound at all frequencies, exceptional durability, and that they even summoned unicorns and rainbows on demand then I might have decided to check into them.
Who determines who is a legitimate reviewer of something? What exactly are these steps? Hmm?
Perceptions are far from meaningless. The world of marketing is entirely based on it, and if you think marketing is not successful at making people do things based on perceptions you're living in complete ignorance. Beyond that, value is entirely based in perception. How much you value something is entirely subjective. I think $350 for a pair of headphones is outrageously high. Someone else might think that it's chump change and throw down over a grand for a pair. Someone thinks paying $100,000+ for a Fisker Karma is just fine. I think it's a waste of cash. It's up to the individual to assign value to what they buy.