I feel that TAS is passing up Stereophile as well. I too have seen SP's quality decline. They still have some excellent reviews, but a few of their reviewers I find pompous, trivial and irritating. J-10 specifically. I also wish that they had a more unified approach to their reviews. It seems like the reviewers don't collaborate on reviews. Maybe they do, but you don't see it in print. On TAS, I am finding a good deal more humility and practicality in their approach. They are hitting the more common price point equipment - the 1000-5000 a piece components the people actually buy. I also like their approach of 'recommended systems' for a given price point OR listening environment. I have found that a good deal of an equipment's quality is determined by the listening environment. A huge room verses a small room. In contrast, Stereophile seems to be hung up on 7 foot tall, 350lb speakers powered by $20,000 amps. Then they rapidly go from that extreme to Yamaha PC speakers. Just to show what good guys they are.
Most Honest Audio Magazine?
I subscribe to Stereophile and I really enjoy reading it but something happened last year that made me raise an eyebrow as to the authenticity of their intentions. Remember the review of the B&W Nautilus 805's? The original reviewer raved about them and rated them "Class A Restricted Low Frequency". Shortly thereafter they demoted the same speaker down to "Class B Restricted Low Frequency". This really hurt the magazine's credibility in my eyes. My first conclusion was that they didn't want to upset the other manufacturers who produced "Class A" products at far higher prices. Shouldn't a trade journal give credit to the truly remarkable products especially when they are produced for relatively decent prices? It's unfortunate that the advertising dollars of the megabuck manufacturers bullied a stellar product into receiving a less than stellar final rating. I'm wondering if this hasn't happened before. I've since heard from some of my audio buddies that corruption does indeed exist in the audio press; everything from reviewers being related to manufacturers to reviewers being offered products for a song (pun intended). Please share your thoughts and experiences when it comes to audio magazines and let me know which ones you'd rate best and worst. Putting together a great system is hard enough without having to sift through the sometimes suspicious advice of those publications who purport to advance the hobby.