"Pete C." wrote in
ster.com:


Red Green wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in
ster.com:


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

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.

But, I shouldn't really be too frazzled or confounded. After all,
we do live in a BizarroLand country where Big Tobaccer is telling
us not to smoke, and where a fat abless Tony Little sold millions
Ab Isolators and Gazelles for about 1/4 of a century..

--
EA

The simple truth has always been - Knowledge is Power - Arm
yourself with the knowledge to properly evaluate products yourself,
and trust no one else's opinion.

and trust
no one else's opinion.

OK, I'm gonna killfile everyone.

I didn't say not to review others opinions, I said not to trust them,
in other words use them to provide clues as to where you may need to
investigate further, do not accept them as fact.


Sorry Pete. You KF'd :-)