Hi-Fi Choice is, in my opinion, a brutally honest mag!! Even their latest front cover delivers healthy doses of criticism for on Musical Fidelity and Arcam gear - this from a British mag! On the other hand, they have been comfortable issuing recommendations on even Sony and Kenwood gear (I know - kind of scary!), but they simply print what they hear. However, some caveats - they only seem to review mid to low end stuff, and they do serve the british market, so one has to interpret their reviews carefully (british gear generally costs a lot more here in the US and vice versa). They had a lot of reviews published on the web recently (the website seems to have disappeared now - can't find it anymore). I was shopping for a CD player and read every review - guess what - they practically slammed every CD player in one way or another - so refreshing. http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/
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.