Rules on Review...

Cynics will point their fingers at magazines but come on, does anyone really think they care so little about their own livelihood and credibility that they will write reviews to sell ad space. If a magazine reviews a piece that is not what it is claimed to be the consumer will hear it when they go to the store to buy it. Who cares what magazine got a big ad budget after, or before a review. That is completely off of the point. Magazines will go out of business if they adopt a policy like the ones suggested in earlier comments. Pure selfishness would prevent it. Magazine writers like to eat too. I don't read many of the HiFi mags anymore and when my last subscription to Stereophile expires I will not renew it. I can learn about as much from some of the knowledgeable people on AudiogoN as I can from the rags. The problem is knowing which people to ignore but I'm learning that too.
Another reason for the positive reviews in the mags might be the case that so much of what is available is really pretty good equipment. Whether the reader likes a piece by a company ultimately does not effect the quality of the product. Some stupid people will automatically trash a piece of gear because they don't like the company or their advertising budget but that trashing doesn't change the quality of the equipment it points out the trashers foolishness. I have never owned a CJ piece but I assume they make pretty good stuff since lots of other people like it.
Back to AudiogoN, reveiwers here are not paid for their writing. They paid to be able to write it. The reason for favorable reviews is fairly obvious to the wise: people bought the equipment because they auditioned it and thought it sounded good enough to spend their limited budget. It would be unethical to review something that the author has not spent a significant ammount of time auditioning in their own home. This precludes, for the most part, the possibility of reviews by people who have not invested their cash in the item. It has nothing to do with advertising budgets or magazine articles. Has anyone ever bought a piece of gear based on the quality of an ad??? I doubt it but I must concede it is possible.

Silly me. Forget my posts, I thought we were talking about something else. Sorry for the trouble, Jadem6.

Reviews are a way for us to share our discoveries. When a friend stops by, you put on your favorite new CDs and talk about how excited you are about the album. You don't say, here's some stuff that I want to show you is bad; let's spend our time together listening to bad music. The only time you might do that is to show how something you thought would be good disappointed you.

I don't think it is wise to write a review unless one has spent time with the item, and we tend to spend our time on components that we like. If I hear something in a store and find it disagreeable, I'd just move on to something else. I'm not going to spend my time evaluating it or comparing it to other products, much less buy it and live with it to know it inside and out.

I think that magazines seem to print positive reviews because the components they review are good. Companies improve their products over time and utilize the best of what's currently out there. Who would bother to make a $10,000 pair of speakers that was bad? A company won't stay in business long if they make stuff that is poor, and they sure wouldn't submit it to a magazine for review if they didn't think it would fare well. I mean, if you think ad money is buying good reviews, then name me some components that got good reviews that shouldn't have.

Also, think about how you read these magazines. I find myself diving into reviews of the gear that I've heard a good buzz about, so those reviews will generally be positive. Why would I care to read a review of something that I don't think I'm going to like anyway? Over time, your impression becomes that a magazine always prints positive reviews. I have seen many bad reviews in Stereophile. I remember one even flat out saying that the cheaper preamp reviewed in the issue was superior in every way -- guess which component's review I initially bought that issue to read?

As a reader of stereo magazines, I don't necessarily read them looking for good or bad reviews. I read them to find out what they think of the new line of, say, Wilson speakers (do they improve on the older line? etc.). I wouldn't want to read Rolling Stone magazine if they devoted space to bad music. I read it to find out about up-and-coming good stuff.

I just read JA's review of the new Thiel 1.6. He had the classist way of saying that he was less than crazy about the speakers. You guys agree? (those of you who've read it, of course) I guess there is a way to write, not a negative, but a less than crazy about, review. It's a gentle thing; and I guess we audiophools know the dif. I suppose that's all that's necessary. Not quite the same review as the, less costly, Revel M20s, back about 6 months ago. Comparably priced (the Revels with stands, of course)- I know which I would buy, or at least lean toward.