Reviews - how is additional equipment selected
Being always curious (and God knows I'm in no position to be critical about such matters!)...
When you're reviewing (say) speakers, how do you decide which amp to use when reviewing them? Do you use a number and then decide which gets the most from the speakers (and then possibly comment that pairing is important) or do you use experience to guess which amp will get the best from them (and not use any other amp) or go with one which is very common? Or some other method that I've not thought of?
Like I said, just curious.
rgds
I thought that WHF use their reference kit to review speakers...
Thanks Andrew.
Chebby: Thanks for the link as well - I'd not seen it before tho I can see how I missed it now I've found it. Anyway, I think *just* using reference equipment wouldn't really be a fair review, due to some things working better with others. Sure, it could be argued that it should deal with whatever is thrown at it but life never seems to be that simple for reasons a beginner like me cannot really understand! Having said that (and maybe what you're getting at), I'd have thought that WHF wouldn't have a constant set of hardware other than their reference equipment?
Anyway, I'm hoping that the review of the new B&W MT-60 uses a pioneer amp... 
Thanks both.
As Andrew explains, kit is put through its paces with all appropriate kit to hand, on top of reference run-out.
With a huge stockroom of kit at the test team's disposal, they can/do try different combinations to try and get the best from each product. Sometimes that means pairing it with obvious, price-compatible partners, sometimes it means seeing how far a product can scale up/down.
With a huge stockroom of kit at the test team's disposal
This one, you mean?
(whimper)
With a huge stockroom of kit at the test team's disposal
This one, you mean?
(whimper)
Is this before or after you had done the "living with it" bits.(oh and then departed)
Oh I only 'lived with'* stuff that they a) had more than one of or b) clearly hadn't inventoried...
(*see also: 'live with')
So that's actually a picture of a room in your house?
Yes, and this is a picture of Mrs JD:
It's a combination of trying (say) speakers with a range of different amplifiers, and drawing on collective experience to inform the choice of amps we use in that process.
Consulting Editor, What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision/whathifi.com Audio Editor, Gramophone