I just let my Stereophile subscription lapse. Fewer reviews of gear and music, and more ads. They're also reviewing less and less 'affordable' gear lately. Well at least affordable to me. They'll review one or two affordable pieces every other month, and they'll happen to be pieces I have no interest in.
What Hifi? was my favorite due to the reasons the OP mentioned. I just can't find it anymore. I liked their shoot-outs where they had a few different pieces for around the same price and had a group of 5 or so people reviewing them blindly. Often times one of them was a manufacturer. They combined this subjectivity with objective measurements and told how each piece varied from the average. No gushing endless gushing about products. They also had reviews where they outright said to avoid products, and sometimes those manufacturers advertised in their mag.
The only version of the mag I can find is What Hifi Sound & Vision, which has more home theater than anything else. Zero interest in that. What Hifi reviewed gear in most price ranges. I didn't agree with every review, but I agreed more than disagreed.
If I could subscribe to it I definitely would.
What Hifi? was my favorite due to the reasons the OP mentioned. I just can't find it anymore. I liked their shoot-outs where they had a few different pieces for around the same price and had a group of 5 or so people reviewing them blindly. Often times one of them was a manufacturer. They combined this subjectivity with objective measurements and told how each piece varied from the average. No gushing endless gushing about products. They also had reviews where they outright said to avoid products, and sometimes those manufacturers advertised in their mag.
The only version of the mag I can find is What Hifi Sound & Vision, which has more home theater than anything else. Zero interest in that. What Hifi reviewed gear in most price ranges. I didn't agree with every review, but I agreed more than disagreed.
If I could subscribe to it I definitely would.