Absolute Sound - do we really need another review like this?

This is why Stereophile is only $7.99 a year. Cheaper than toilet paper but doesn't get the job done!

Stereophile has Art Dudley. I used to love Listener Magazine that Art and founded in the 1990's and published into the 2000's. I loved it precisely because it was so quirky, weird, fun and they rated equipment not just with one-five stars, but something could also earn a pancreas. Yep, a little line drawing of a pancreas! For 'wonderful but decidedly non-hifi that your pancreas aches for.' (not and exact quote, but it gets the gist).
I loved reading letters to the editor: "Dear sirs, please cancel my subscription. I prefer serious magazines. There is no place is audio for magazines with a sense of humor."  More than one enraged reader sent a letter like that.
Anyway, Art is now at Stereophile. He's still engraging a few mugworts every now and then, and still entertaining me. Also, he's reviewing 50 year old speakers. Talk about how many times do you need to reveiw something, and those aren't even made any more!
The rest of the audio press, not so much. Online there is 6moons and Positive-Feedback. I dip in every now and then.
 

I am new to quality audio and did subscribe to Stereophile, though not because I preferred it to other sources. Simply because I had to start somewhere. Quickly however, I found Hans Beekhuyzen and I started learning basics by watching his reviews, rather than reading Stereophile. I also found Audiogon, and other online sources for researching auction gear I could afford. Still bumping along, I guess, but I do wonder where I can find good, unbiased (paid for) information on affordable solutions to great sounding music.

Irony of ironies....    Both Absolute Sound and Stereophile did such a fantastic job in educating and creating a group of highly informed audiophiles, that they rendered the need for their publications to become no longer needed... in many ways. Because of these magazines, the choice of products today are so good that reviews are often times rendered a mere curiosity rather than a need.  Audiophiles now  know what they want, and where to find it.  IMHO.

If you want to complain about a review, how about the Rega review in which we were essentially told that running your table a bit fast improves "pace".  Does this make my Music Hall Cruise Control a "pace control" in case I don't like the way artist performed a track?