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by sidibe 3043 days ago
Great marketing to let an obvious fan (check his history) who loves writing get an early look at your product.
3 comments

He was very open & clear I thought:

"I also paid full price for this HomePod, with my own money. I paid for all the equipment to measure it with, and I own every speaker in featured in this review."

This is very clear too:

"Neither KEF, nor Apple is paying me to write this review, nor have they ever paid me in the past."

This wasn't necessary, in my opinion, but again is very open:

"At the same time, I’m a huge apple fan. Basically, all the technology I own is apple-related. I don't mind being in their ecosystem, and it’s my responsibility to tell you this."

Not to mention, you can still be a fan and objective in your review of a product. The two are not mutually exclusive.
"He was very open & clear I thought:"

It could be just to make the review feel more authentic, and also both advertisers and audience are getting smarter.

This is not a statement about this particular reviewer, just my thoughts.

Why stop there, though? Maybe he’s lying about having paid his own money for it. Maybe he’s lying about the measurements. Maybe his entire user account is a fake persona. Where do you draw the line?
The reviewer seemed to be very frank about listing their biases in fairness (see the big section titled 'Bias' in the review). And they shared their original data, so it's up to you what you want to make of it.
Now if only more tech reviewers gave out raw data or even actually measured. Too many just read off the specs and go yep sounds good!
Where does it say they got it early? It's plausible this was done over the weekend.
Looks like he got to play with it for an hour. TFA is his measurements from multiple hours of use at his house.
He was given an intro listen before the device came out. Meanwhile he ordered one for himself, promising to post measurements after he received it.