While the information below isn't about an audio review, it shows that Sander Sassen who "reviewed" the Nuforce amps cannot be trusted:
http://www.filerush.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3750
DriverHeaven digs up dirt on one of Kyle's archrivals, and it's not a pretty sight.
I'm a frequent visitor over on [H]ard|OCP and the [H]ard|Forum, usually either helping board members or informing the gaming enthusiasts of the latest news happenings. The news posts on the news page consist of a few remarks about a newsbyte, a link to the source, and a short quote to get readers psyched about what's going on. Occasionally, the news crew will break away from this trend and come down [H]ard on an unsuspecting victim such as that of FutureMark's benchmarking program "3DMark" or the much-talked about Phantom.
Today, it was Kyle's turn to grab the Phantom-smashing mallet to strike down an archrival by the name of Sander Sassen: the Chief Executive Officer of HardwareAnalysis.com.
History:
During the late 90's, Sander received one of his first jobs in online hardware analysis from Kyle. The two went their own ways after Kyle *supposedly* stole a design for a heatsink Sander had been working on and sold it to a foreign investor. Since then, their relationship has been on the rocks and it doesn't look like the two will be getting together for a party anytime soon.
The "Here and Now":
A post was made on [H] at 11:31 AM EDT today by Kyle pushing for Sander to clear up an accusation that could zero-out his reputation. As is being reported by DriverHeaven.net's "Zardon", Sander posted up a fake benchmark / review of the up-and-coming R520 chipset from ATI which, "Zardon" notes, is still being held down by an NDA. "Zardon" states that, come October, Sander's readers will find out that he only tested an "Ouija board" and not the R520.
As evidence of Sander trying to spite ATI, he later added this e-mail that was sent to ATI from Sander prior to not being invited to one of ATI's events:
> From: Sander Sassen - Hardware Analysis
> [mailto:ssassen@hardwareanalysis.com]
> Sent: 08 September 2005 09:39
> To: Andrzej Bania
> Subject: Re: Editors Day
>
> So you're telling me I'm not invited is that it? I feel an ATI column coming up, lets see if we can drop the stock price shall we?
>
> Sander Sassen
> http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
The email isn't relevant to the degree that Sander isn't very friendly, but it does bring into question the validity of the "work" he's done over at HardwareAnalysis over the years. If he didn't actually review the R520, then what did he test? Has he performed "tests" before without actually possessing the hardware?
Conclusion:
All in all, Kyle and many others are simply asking for Sander to do the right thing: tell the truth. Kyle said it best by stating that Sander needed to come forward "before he digs a really big hole that his small website will never have the power to get out of."
A rebuttal to the ongoing fiasco has been posted by Sander and can be viewed here. You can find Kyle's post by visiting HardOCP.com and you can also find the post from DriverHeaven.net's "Zardon" by clicking here.
Edit: An ATI representative has made a post regarding Sander not being invited to ATI's R520 Tech Day. You can view his response here.
What we should consider:
- As far as the gaming community is concerned, how will this affect the way we look at hardware reviews and benchmarks down the road?
- Will members of the community care enough to investigate past the text and bar graphs to see if sites are benchmarking physical hardware?
- What would you do if you were in Sander Sassen's shoes right now?
Last edited by Brandon Shipe on Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:57 pm; edited 3 times in total
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