Thank you for the info.
Great help.

Kylotan
...their feature How Effective Are Portable Vocal Booths? said that these devices create as many reflections as they prevent and tend to colour the sound as well.

Just a few comments about magazines...first, I wouldn't consider that an accurate summary. These devices aren't "digital"; the article correctly pointed out that they trade off some issues for others, and there was a great degree of variation with respect to reducing outside noise (not what they're really intended to do anyway), reducing reflections from walls coming back into the mic, standing waves within the device itself, and coloration. It did say that the SE remains the most effective, echoing that original review. 
 
I use the Primacoustic Voxguard not because any advertisers are looking over my shoulder, but because it reduces reflections coming off the walls back into the mic. It does color the sound somewhat, but nothing that can't be overcome with a little bit of EQ, which I use anyway for other reasons. Regarding the photos of the test procedure, I move the mic much further into the screen. Interestingly, the article says "James Ishmaev–Young of SE Electronics says that moving the mic further into the screen should increase the attenuation of room reflections, and will make differences in coloration between the better and less good screens more audible. We did not test this claim." I agree with SE, you need to find the best positioning for a given mic. One size does not fit all, and where you position the screen in a typical room makes a huge difference.
 
I also looked up some recent preamp reviews and most had more than just preamp sections, like tone controls and compression. There can be major differences among preamps that do more than just provide gain. And in one review where the reviewer talked about a transparent sound compared to his tube preamp, he also said "if you already have a good-quality audio interface with built-in mic preamps, I don’t think you’d hear much of a difference." It seems 90% of a review's text covers specs, construction, and options; the reviewer's subjective impressions tend to be a pretty small part of the review. 
 
When I write reviews, I believe the readers don't care what I think of a unit (and if they do, they shouldn't). Instead, I try to describe what something does as accurately as possible so people can make up their own minds about whether they're interested in a piece of gear or not. In my review of the PL2 in the latest eZine, someone could read that and be turned off to what it does while someone else could think it's really cool. 
 
As to why most reviews are positive, it's simple. There are far more products than can ever be reviewed. Reviewers don't get paid huge amounts of money, so they'd rather spend their time evaluating something they think they'll enjoy. Which scenario is more likely: "Hey, I saw this really cool synth at NAMM. Can I review it?" or "Hey, I saw this piece of gear that doesn't interest me at all and looks kind of pointless. I'd like to spend a month of my life learning all about something that appears boring. Can I review it?"
 

Anderton
Just a few comments about magazines...first, I wouldn't consider that an accurate summary. These devices aren't "digital"; the article correctly pointed out that they trade off some issues for others, and there was a great degree of variation with respect to reducing outside noise (not what they're really intended to do anyway), reducing reflections from walls coming back into the mic, standing waves within the device itself, and coloration. It did say that the SE remains the most effective, echoing that original review.

The summary article is fine. It's that the original review makes no real mention of the sound colouration artifacts (which are larger, in dB terms, than the attenuation of late reflections!) The one of the Kaotica does say that the low-mids come up a bit, but they've not spent the time there to determine whether that is a natural EQ effect or whether these are extra unwanted tones (eg. comb-filtering). The original reviews are never as objective as the later features are.
 

It seems 90% of a review's text covers specs, construction, and options; the reviewer's subjective impressions tend to be a pretty small part of the review.

Maybe you're right, but there should be no place for claiming that pre-amps or EQs sound "musical" or "open". It's just fluff, talking up a product and claiming it has magical powers. As you say, they should "describe what something does as accurately as possible". Instead, they're contributing to the music industry's tendency towards confirmation bias, where people are convinced that a real tube amp sounds better than a plugin, or that a freeware EQ can't sound as good as a Waves one can, or that the preamps on a Neve desk make everything sound better than it does through a Behringer, even though people can't actually tell which was which when you put the 2 sounds unlabelled side by side. I appreciate that is good for the gear industry and therefore the magazine that reviews that gear. It's not necessarily good for the readers though.
 

As to why most reviews are positive, it's simple. There are far more products than can ever be reviewed.

I'm sure that is a factor, but with there being almost no reviews that aren't largely positive, I don't have any confidence that SOS would ever tell me if a new product is simply not worth buying compared to a competitor. They're in a position to know that, having tried many alternatives, and I am not, but their reviews aren't going to tell me.

Kylotan
It's that the original review makes no real mention of the sound colouration artifacts (which are larger, in dB terms, than the attenuation of late reflections!)...The original reviews are never as objective as the later features are.

 
I think that's part of the "shiny new object!" syndrome. It takes living with something to find out about not only unanticipated drawbacks, but undiscovered coolness. Magazines are always under pressure from readers to be first to review something, but that has its drawbacks. It's always much easier to give an evaluation of products when they've been around for awhile, and you can compare performance of different products.
 
Being acutely aware of the limitations of print, I started a new type of review over at Harmony Central which was basically a moderated forum thread where anyone could chime in with opinions (including manufacturers, if they wanted to rebut something). These reviews would often go on for months and because they were uncensored, people could post really negative or really positive opinions. BUT it had checks and balances, because no one could say a feature was fabulous if a hundred other people thought it wasn't, and vice-versa--when a shill for a competitor would come in and blast something, people who had actually used the product would take care of them. 
 

Maybe you're right, but there should be no place for claiming that pre-amps or EQs sound "musical" or "open". It's just fluff, talking up a product and claiming it has magical powers.

 
My favorite was the review in an audiophile mag of USB cables. Some had a "warmer" sound, some were more "transparent," etc. Now, here's the problem. The person doing the review probably thought he was perceiving actual differences--and he probably was. But not because the cable changed, because his listening position in his room--which was almost certainly untreated--changed. If you listen to a cable, get up, unplug it, plug the same cable back in, and sit down again, the odds are you'll hear a difference.
 
The other thing that really annoys me is when a reviewer states breathlessly that a speaker "revealed things in the recording I'd never heard before!" Well of course, different speakers have different frequency responses. Next.
 
There have been several studies about confirmation bias, the most recent being one involving wine where people were served identical glasses of wine but told that one was more expensive than the other. Invariably, people thought the more expensive wine tasted better. But what's really interesting is the results of the MRIs.
 
That works both ways. If someone reads about bugs in this forum, they'll believe SONAR is unreliable even if the bugs don't affect them, or they've never experienced those bugs themselves.
 

I don't have any confidence that SOS would ever tell me if a new product is simply not worth buying compared to a competitor. 

 
Well FWIW...I've written five extremely negative reviews in my time as a journalist. With one of them, of effects pedals, I closed by saying that "I always try to find some redeeming factor, but in the case they got nothing right." In an onboard preamp for guitar, I said the choice of frequencies chosen was ridiculous and that anyone would be better off buying any other guitar preamp. In the third, I said the software was so unreliable as to be useless. In the fourth, the problem was that a product advertised as being compatible with Mac and Windows just plain wasn't. In the fifth, the problem was that a plug-in that was sold for Windows could not work under Windows. It wasn't an incompatibility, they had ported from the Mac in a way that was simply incapable of working with Windows.
 
None of these reviews was ever published, but not because of fear of advertisers at the magazines. The pedal manufacturer went out of business before the go-to-print date. The next two manufacturers decided not to put their products out after being sent my review for fact-check. Both came out about six months later, but with the problems fixed. The company with the cross-compatibility issue solved it by promoting their product as solely for the Mac (where it worked well). For the fifth, they killed the product line and the company was out of business six months later.
 
I've also written several software reviews where I caught serious bugs. In many cases, the company would ask if I'd put off publishing the review for a month while they fixed the bug, and would I then revise the review. I always said yes, after all, what's more important...getting the review in print, or having the review be inaccurate because by the time it hit the streets, the bug would have been fixed?
 
So sometimes there's a lot going on behind the scenes...much depends on how seriously the writer takes the responsibility of writing a review. 
 
 
 

Anderton
I think I've written over 150 SONAR columns for Sound on Sound, which means virtually every issue since I started writing it. The only exceptions were if they reviewed SONAR, the issue didn't include my column; and the column got "lost" for two issues when there was a switchover in the person doing the editing of the techniques columns. Other than that, I have a perfect attendance record 

I have read everyone of those columns, Craig! Thanks for your contributions!
 

Thanks Jesse!

I have read a few less-than-glowing reviews in SOS, but not many. Technology and the quality of products has improved remarkably in the last few decades, and I seldom buy a hardware that does not perform well, so I would expect most reviews to be fairly positive.
 
It is quite common, however, to read SOS reviews that make it clear that the product is good, but that there are better or less expensive options out there.  The PROs and CONs box almost always has some CONs.
 
Regarding those reflection filters, I have one—I would have to look to remember the brand—and it works well once it's in place, but the attachment to the mic stand is horrible.