In particular, I want to comment on Stereophile. The quality of the magazine has continually declined in the past 5 years, despite John Atkinson's continued claims of neutrality & objectivity. Certainly for those of us into classical music, the decline is disgusting. Notice the swinging door of reviewers on staff? Not to offend anyone's particular musical tastes, but reproducing a live, acoustical symphony orchestra is the most daunting challenge to any piece of equipment, & should be the standard by which to measure sonic accuracy, NOT Nine Inch Nails or some other heavy metal group. Most of these reviewers are laughable & pathetic. Pompous individuals who have proclaimed themselves authorities. And, as has already been stated by others in this thread, how often do you see a negative review of anything? Many of you know what garbage some of what is reviewed really is, or mediocre at best. The best advice is to listen to a wide range of opinions, & hopefully have some dealerships with some honesty -- & the BEST advice I can give you, is: Learn what questions to ask & ask many, & read between the lines of the responses you get. Then go from there. It's not an easy road to find the truth in this hobby.
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.