John Darko
Dear manufacturer / PR agent,
Thanks for getting in touch. Please forgive me for such a long-winded reply but I was confronted three times at Munich High-End 2025 by manufacturers who were visibly frustrated that I had declined to review their products. Some expressed their frustrations more kindly than others. Rather than wave ’em off with the glib-but-true “But I don’t work for you, I work for me”, I thought I would give you – and therefore them – the bigger picture.
Getting your product reviewed by Darko.Audio isn’t just a waiting game, it’s an editorial matter. I decline far more review requests than I accept, and before I can say “yes” or “no” to an assignment, I ask myself three questions:
Would my audience be interested in your product?
This question isn’t as easy to answer as it first appears—the Darko.Audio YouTube channel has grown significantly since 2020. We’re not far off hitting 400K subscribers, but in 2025, that number plays second fiddle to video view count. Each video we make eats 40 hours of production time. Time that does not include taking delivery of your product, unboxing it, setting it up, listening to it, conducting side-by-side comparisons and packing it away ready to be returned to you. I have to make every hour of work count for something, and YouTube has made me gun-shy of products that I don’t think will pull an audience and/or haven’t drawn much attention elsewhere.
As a manufacturer, it is not enough that you make a high-quality product; you must also announce it via the hi-fi/head-fi press and promote it wherever you see fit. And that promotion should come before asking me to make a YouTube video — a significant chunk of the Darko.Audio YouTube audience must have some prior knowledge of your brand before I can consider any new gear. I’ve no interest in playing a large (or small) role in a product’s launch, I don’t review pre-production samples, and I won’t cover stuff that comes without history or backstory. Being the first to review something is not a motivating factor for me.
If I agree to make a video, I will ensure that my coverage is accurate, even-handed and reflects the luxury nature of your product.
I read 95% of all comments landing under each of my videos. They consistently tell me that the Darko.Audio YouTube channel is where mainstream buyers – many unaware of the audiophile niche’s depth and heavy expense – mix with the audiophiles who know how esoteric and expensive hi-fi gear can be.
If maximising each video’s view count was my sole goal, I’d cover only Bluetooth headphones, Sonos-type products, entry-level DACs and streaming amplifiers. I’d get the rush of creating visually appealing videos alongside the joy of finding good sound at lower prices. I would then consider driving that traffic into the stratosphere by tapping into the thirst for ‘cope‘ by claiming that the cheaper gear is just as good as the more expensive stuff. That would be the easy play when so many viewers (but not all) seem so ready to accept it without substantiation.
And yet an ‘all you need is…’ approach would cause many of my die-hard audiophile subscribers to jump ship; subscribers who understand the ease with which one can hide behind a generalisation – “This competes with products selling for two or three times as much” – and how such generalisations quickly come undone once the specifics are brought into the mix e.g. “Which thrice costly items are we talking about here?” These more worldly-wise audience members demand more nuance. They want to learn about, say, big-ticket streaming DACs and sophisticated active loudspeakers. Some will watch even if they’re budget won’t stretch to the product under review. Others want to watch without being told they are idiots for considering a purchase of such significant magnitude. They understand that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.
At their extremes, these two types of viewers pull my work in opposing directions. You can’t please everyone all of the time. A large audience with polarised interests means that every video will leave some people dissatisfied. And boy, do those people let me know in the comments, often without any thought for manners or civility.
This is why I have to walk the line between mainstream viewers fresh out of Sonos school – and their desire for non-stop coverage of sub-$1000 items – and the more discerning audiophiles who want to see me stretch my legs (and wallet) with the spendier stuff. And who better placed than I to decide what to cover each week? I have a 360-degree helicopter view of my YouTube channel like nobody else and, Olaf aside, I do all the work.
My YouTube channel has grown in popularity because of an ability to flip-flop between Bluetooth headphones, mega-money DACs, affordable standmounts, pricey amplifiers that make innovative use of new technology and CD players and touchscreen-fronted streamers selling for wildly different prices. I cover the latter even when I don’t see the point of postage-stamp-sized cover art display.
This is where the second question comes into play…
Am I personally interested in your product?
If I am going to spend many hours listening to a product and many more making a video about what I hear, I need to feel a certain degree of personal involvement. And personal involvement means personal interest. I have to want to review it.
Not all audiophiles are cut from the same cloth. Some are into vinyl, SET tube amplifiers and high-efficiency loudspeakers. I have an aversion to products that radiate a lot of heat, so SETs aren’t for me. I don’t do SACD (or DSD) because of their teeny-tiny music libraries and I wish my interest in multi-thousand-dollar headphone amplifiers were bigger than it is. On the other hand, I have nothing against Class D amplifiers and I am bullish about active loudspeakers and amplifiers that load in streaming, D/A conversion, Apple Music, room compensation, HDMI ARC, headphone amplifier circuits and phono stages.
There are exceptions. I sometimes say “yes” to a product where I know my interest is much higher than the audience’s. This doesn’t happen often because (I hope) I have cultivated an audience whose interests mirror my own. I am just as into €400 Bluetooth headphones as I am €20,000 passive loudspeakers.
And yet there’s one question remaining that has the potential to nix all of the above.
Do I have the time to review your product?
Welcome to Planet Reality, where, if I am to continue with side-by-side comparisons, I have time for only 30 review videos per year. With manufacturers giving me advance notice of what’s coming down the pike and wanting to satisfy my audience’s broad-ranging interests, I know what over half of the reviews will be about before any single year begins. The remaining spots are allocated as the year progresses, but a handful of those must go to product reviews related to Darko.Audio’s EISA membership. This leaves very little wiggle room for chance encounters, random discoveries and manufacturer requests arriving via email, like yours!
This is usually where conspiracy theories step into the frame, so I’ll head ’em off at the pass with this: I audit all reviews done each year to ensure that at least 70% are given over to non-avertisers. Offering to buy advertising on Darko.Audio won’t grease the wheels for a product review. Advertisers are added on an invite-only basis. One out, one in. Capacity ten.
I hope you understand and thanks for reading this far (if you did),
John
