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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.
canadianguy

Showing 2 responses by kr4

kr4's avatar
kr4
3,651 posts
 
Never comparing the two?

Despite this, I listen to stereo most of the time for reasons of repertoire, but even with my abiding expectations regarding stereo, some speakers can throw a bigger soundstage than did the PSBs. An example would be my resident Paradigm Studio/60 v3s, which fall far short of the Imagine Ts in terms of midrange clarity and neutrality, and treble delicacy. With big stuff, the bigger Studios simply sounded...bigger. But with a jazz quintet, solo voices, and most music on a small scale, the PSBs sounded more honest and real.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,651 posts
 
First, I suggest that you not make a habit of quoting copyright materials in extenso but keep the link along with pointed excerpts. Some companies are quite protective of their property. (This is not a threat or warning, just a point of information.)

Second, the Imagine T6 was not a full review but was included in my column where space is tight. A typical column that covers 3 topics/products is usually of the same length as a single product review.

Third, you can reasonably assume that the qualitative comments in the column are made with reference to the resident system components, in this case, the Paradigm Studio 60v3 speakers.

Kal
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