Reviewing the Reviewers - and the decline of HiFi

I do wonder who on this forum read the second half of my thread starter.
It's not about a conspiracy either.
A failure to relate and be genuinely critical will lead to the continuous demise of Hi End hifi. If reviews are always wishy washy, uncritical, and irrelevant, then when people have a browse through the magazines on the shelves, like many people do when researching a moment of big spending, do writers genuinely believe they are doing the world of audio a favour?
Remember my point about Breitling outselling the whole of the High End audio industry in the states put together...

One man and his dog is all good and well, but he has some difficulty serving the masses or relating what he makes to the buying public - hence he remains one man and his dog. Hi fi is in decline, yet music sales have increased year on year. The growth of streaming products, and things like the Devialet are good news IMHO - modern, stylish, versatile, and sounds brilliant. That said products like Magico and other uber expensive speakers are bad news - out of touch. Magazines and reviews that slap the back of such products every time they come out is also bad news - I was impressed with Fremer being one of the very few reviewers not to be bowled over by some Magico (Q5's) I think. Read an Alan Sircom review and he simply has nothing bad or negative to say. Hi fi needs to become genuinely affordable again, and reviewing must reflect that realiseable reality.

First of all I am glad this thread has provoked a response. I very much agree with Robskers ideal.

I used Breitling as an example of luxury product, that to all intents and purposes is completely and utterly irrelevant to the end user, yet attracts a lot of money. Hifi, let alone the high end, is very much perceived, outside HiFi circles as utterly pointless. Yet we have a watch company that thrives and takes money from the type of people that can afford to buy, and ought to be attracted to hi-fi. I used the Breitling example having read an article at the back of HiFi News.

As to the demise of HiFi - let's face it - 'it's hifi but not as we know it'. You don't have the hifi stores packed to the rafters on Tottenham Court Road anymore. It does not attract the mainstream expenditure as a proportion of our income as it once did. In the past most people did not have a Sony Walkmen, and listened to music on a hifi at home. Now the truth is that the majority of people regrettably never listen to music other than through white ear buds, and the closest thing to bass is from their car boot.
HiFi has, by the year, and I've seen it in the last 10 years become more and more of a specialist and marginalised hobby made of small boutique brands. As this continues the products become more and more expensive. Take for example the Vendetta Research phono stage - it was a high end product, and can probably beat the vasst majority of todays phono stages. Index linked, whilst it will not be cheap, it certainly will not cost you the ridiculous sums that some top end phono stages do currently.
If you do pick up an older copy of HiFi News and read a review by MArtin Colloms for instance, he was not scared to be genuinely critical of a product, and likewise clearly explain his position. His magazine called HiFi Critic is much the same in that regard.
Manufacturers, understandably love what they make, but you can't send a product to a magazine, pay the magazine to review a product, and then also expect an uncritical review. It's a ludicrous set up. There is one on-line magazine that won't say boo to a goose, and says everything is the best thing the reviewer has ever heard.
A reviewers job is to provide a critique, a comparison, and relate it to the reader.
Some reviewers start of very well like Roy Gregory did in the early years of HiFi plus, but as time went on, he had to ward off and respond to several letters about his bias in favour of Audiofreaks imported items. Worse still in the reviewers system edition, I have a funny feeling that he had quite a few items from Audiofreaks in it. The list just keeps going on. Alvin Gold in the late 80's and early 90's was never scared of criticizing Linn products for instance - in particular the halo wearing LP12.
Compare this to Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear crew. They may well be 3 middle aged twits, but they can relate products/cars to the buying market. Likewise they have absolutely no fear in actually being openly critical of a product.
Hi-fi is slowly turning into a cottage industry, and this is due to the fact it is simply not attracting customers. Another thing - the 1970's was the 'Golden Age' of hifi - paradoxically it was the time when luxury watches were doing their worst ever as the cheap Timex LCD watches were the thing to buy. Fast forward to now...

Whilst your experience is doubtless courant, it is, nevertheless, descriptive of magazine and journalistic practices to run as a viable business. It explains to some degree why magazines publish what they do, and why - (I say to some degree, because I am sure that there are several other factors that would perhaps take too long to describe).
However, magazines have also been influential over time - such as the storage of vehicles post manufacture that Top Gear highlighted, or fashion magazines such as Vogue that have criticized working practices in clothes manufacture in the developing world.

I think some of these last few posts kind of hit the nail on the head. I was not saying the decline is due to the magazines alone, but if in '77 mags gave useful info, why is that not so much the case now. Bloggers really do lack a bit of integrity, but they don't have what I think is an industrial responsibility so to speak. When Hi-fi was more central to our home entertainment (ie we now have playstations, computers etc) there was more of the average persons budget dedicated to buying good and decent hifi. For instance the top end of turntables, although expensive as at the time Technics SP10 mk3 springs to mind, it is not vis a vis as expensive say as an SME 30. So where products are financially in the middle ground, there is a real competition to make the best product within that cost parameter. So we have more products competing within a sector and a need for reviewers to be more critical. Have read of a good car magazine - Autocar/Car/Top Gear - they are not scared to give a genuine opinion positive or negative - and the motor industry continues to thrive (yes I know it is a different industry dealing with 'essential items'). Currently we do have all out cost no object products - with a price to reflect this too. The problem with this is that whilst I love statement products, they do not occupy the real world, and worship within magazines of such products is seen as over-indulgent to the normal consumer. In car programmes, and I use top gear once again, they aren't scared t criticise such products. The average consumer need not have to read between the lines and get to know the writer first - I work with the spoken word all day as a lawyer, and I like precision (honest -lol). In the uk, apparently HiFi World have the highest ownership (of equipment) to reader ratio - it tends to contain a lot more realistic priced products - I must say I think the writing in that magazine has really gone south since it gives out 4-5 globes to just about everything. HiFi News are, unfortunately, just going backwards from the days of Colloms - hardly anything gets less than 75% score in sound tests. Same can be said of HiFi Choice which, if you pick up an edition 25 years ago, against something in the last 5 years, you will see that the old editions weren't scared to criticise a product. I went to the High End Show in Windsor and couldn't help but feel that it felt a bit like the last throes of a dying animal - there were some astonishingly tasty bits of kit that bore no relation to most of the buying public that were in attendance. When I went to my first show in 2002 (I think) I came away and set up auditions for several products, many of which I then purchased - I don't have an ultra high end rig but most peoples eyes water when I tell them the price of it. Even then the magazines were less critical than 10 years before, but are positively harsh to those out now.