Velonews recently did a review of the ENVE SES 2.2 wheels:
Reviewed: Enve SES 2.2 wheels - VeloNews.com

What was interesting in this review is the following statement: "we’d have a hard time recommending them over something like the Shimano C24s, which performed as well or better in our tests and cost roughly one-third as much."

In this day an age when publications don't give any bad reviews for fear of losing advertising revenue and every review seems to copy the manufacturer press release including the manufacturer's new buzzwords and made up acronyms, it was actually quite surprising to see a review where they basically said that the product they are reviewing is overpriced and you would get similar or better performance for a product from a different manufacturer for a third of the price!!!

More reviews should be like this one. Then again, I'm hoping that this is truly an honest review and not Velonews trying to make peace with Shimano over their Dura-Ace article a while back that caused friction between the two companies.

That review cannot be correct. Everyone knows the Enves are better. Else why would they cost more?

What's not to fathom about a $3500 wheelset not being much better than a $800-$1000 wheelset?

You get to a point where things just start getting stupid. You can pay $245,000 for a Ferrari, or you can pay $350,000 for that same Ferrari but with a bunch of carbon fiber looking pieces in it. I don't think there's any performance difference at all between the two models, and if there were.. you'd be looking at probably a quarter of a percent, maybe.

There are way too many trolls in every industry now just pricing stuff on a whim and folks either shelling out based on reputation of the company, brand image, or straight up 'i got it cuz it looks cool'.

It's the really cool stickers, worth every penny of it.

Guess Enve has proven not to have deep pockets for shelling out ad money. Shimano the mothership is probably a better investment worth protecting.
Honestly is probably almost rare in reviews...interspersed with cluelessness and even personal preference coloring truth, but other thing worth noting is...there probably isn't much difference in a lot of wheels that cost a lot versus much less. A good set of wheels can be purchased for $300.

100% agree with you all on your replies on very marginal gains on wheels for a huge price premium (or apparently in the case of these ENVES, absolutely no better performance than a much lower priced Shimano wheel). What I found noteworthy was the fact that Velonews actually printed that statement.

I was used to disregarding most reviews from the press since just about every review states that the evaluated bike/wheels/groupset/whatever makes the tester feel faster. It makes the tester climb better, descend faster and will save you so many watts over a certain amount of kilometers if ridden at 30 mph or faster. I'm also used to seeing how this piece of the equipment that the reviewer is writing about is going to transform the cycling experience because it now includes more "AeroMagic" (TM) and how it is "more laterallier stifferer and verticalier more complianterer (TM)".

For a while now the reviews I have valued the most are from people in forums such as this one who are real users of the equipment. Perhaps it is too much to ask for honestly good reviews from people who depend on advertising from the bike manufacturers to write good reviews and to have the manufacturer continue to provide products for the press to review. However, If this is a truly honest review, kudos to Velonews for pointing out that a product is way overpriced and pointing out a better performing alternative at a fraction of the cost.