On Nov 10, 6:19*pm, "Existential Angst"
wrote:
Awl --

Rather than a harangue, let me just post some numbers, from *the Dec.
Consumer Reports on Ranges I just got.

The first number is the price, the second number is CR's score

For 30" dual fuel (elec/gas),

Bosch *2,000 - 72
GE *1850 - 70
GE *1500 - 69

So far, so good, right? *Heh....

Kenmore *3200 - 68
Wolf *5200 - 67
GE *2800 - 65
Viking *5500 - 63
Jenn-Air 2400 - 62
Dacor *6000 - 59
KithenAid *3700 - 50

Isn't there some fine print in the article that says something like
"score differences of less than 4 points are meaningless"? IIRC
they usually say something like that next to some sort of
bar graph.

If you were to graph this and do a linear regression for a correlation
coefficient, you'd wind up with a blob for a graph, which means a
correlation between price and quality of ZERO -- no relationship whatsoever.
If you didn't have objective scoring, and were going by price/brand alone,
you might as well randomly paste the product sheets on the side of a barn,
and shoot arrows at them blindfolded, and buy whatever your arrow hit.

Wow.... *And this zero correlation occurs in their longer review of electric
smoothtops and gas ranges, of over 30 products each -- many of them GE,
rated best buys, while $5,000 thermador is near the middle, and $4600 DCS is
4th from the bottom.

How can this be?

Well, some would argue that CR doesn't really know how to test stuff, or
tests it peculiarly, and I would not totally disagree with that. *While Wolf
and Viking may have not have scored well in CR's scoring system, mebbe they
are built like tanks, never break, last forever, etc. I'll take
reliability/longevity over slightly less performance any day of the week.

But then, mebbe not! *How do you know???

Apropos of Fox5's li'l bull**** expose on bogus on-line reviews (the creamed
Lifestyle Lifts, the retail plastic surgery outfit, creamed them, yesterday,
with a continuation of the general topic today), the problem of Truth in
general is a very real one: *HTF can you ever tell what is what, who is
tellling the truth?

This zero-correlation between price and score is almost the RULE in CR's
tests, from vacuums to cars. *A $100 Hoover vastly outperforms $500 Dysons.
It's just amazing.

Yeah, but that Dyson guy on TV just oozes reliability.

A lot of what CR tests is intended to be marketed to gullible people,
who
really think it's important to have a washer/dryer that matches their
decor.
That sort of crap can really increase the price of an appliance.
"Oooh, washer
A has 5 different cycles, but washer B has 20. B must be better!"

Cindy Hamilton