@rbstehno : When I get my Stereophile issue in the mail, I look at the conclusion of each piece reviewed and 99.999% of the time the piece they are reviewing is the best they have ever heard. Sometimes, in parts of the review they will have a few negatives but in the end, it’s worth every single $ that it cost and is highly recommended. Surprise, the reviewer claims it’s a major contender. For what, not sure, speaker of the year, best speaker for the money, your guess is as good as mine
Well, that may not be all as sinister as it sounds. What I’ve been told is that the glossies select products after private demos, in-person show evaluations, etc. Editorial chooses products that then seem to have potential to be outstanding offerings of interest to the largest # of readers. So there’s a pre-filtering process going on. TAS & Stereophile can review only a tiny # of products that are released every month, so I understand why they would not want to waste space (or months of review time!) on components that are likely to be crappy. One might argue that it would do a service to readers to "warn" them away from crummy stuff, but it’s not hard to argue instead that the way these pubs select products is just as valid.
This is an explanation, not an endorsement. But I think you’ll appreciate what these pubs do if you approach them from this perspective.
