Busted! Reviewer copies manufacturers sales page in review?

The publication of damning reviews would increase the risk of litigation. I know there are ways of insulating from this but it's still an issue.

Magazines or any other source of keyboard opinion and self promoted SME are merely guidance and mostly data points

It's incumbent upon the consumer to trust but verify and convert to actual information upon which we use to make decisions

Lots of Kool-Aid out there and we all drink it, just be careful how much we allow it to influence our behavior

@asvjerry I like the keep up the hunt reference and couldn't agree more the edge will always be out of reach but in 5-10 years that edge is now main and we stand a chance to benefit

Enjoy the journey

Media containing so-called reviews are mostly motivated to make the reader want what they don't have, maybe not now but eventually.  Curiosity leads to purchase,  and the spending of money continues the cycle.

Marketing copy is the same.

Both rely on sales to fund new products to promote.  Without new products hifi media would be out of business.

With that in mind, who wants to read negative reviews? Who would buy that magazine?

I would not be surprised if some reviewers write marketing copy.

The publishers know who pays their bills, and my guess is that is largely not revenue for sales of the publication, but from advertising in it.

A truly independent publication would not be affordable to readers.

Being aware of editorial bias will regulate how seriously to take the content.

For me, I like to research rewiews understand differences between products.  I enjoy reviewers who make fair and honest comparisons, and that dont buy the products they just reviewed or advertise them.

Interesting, kind of like Big Pharma providing drug data to the FDA which then uses it for drug approval.  

Noromance-aren’t car reviews subjective too? Looks of a car vs sound of a component? Only car magazines have multiple reviewers evaluating a group of cars sometimes, especially when they rate 20+ cars for the car of the year, and they rate the worst to the best and they explain why. And, all the car manufacturers whether they are rated the worst or the best still advertise in the mags or might not even advertise at all but still evaluated. Something that would be very rare in audio mags.

IMO, the reviewers in audio mags try to write reviews that tend to elevate the iq of the audiophile using words only an English professor knows whereas in the car mags, the reviews of a $3M car is down to earth and to the point.