Stereophile's refusal to review more low

I like them to keep 'shooting for the moon'. I usually wind up buying their super-expensive stuff, albeit several years later at a much reduced price.

Stereophile is a business. They need advertising dollars to survive. I have a personal friend who had one of the best sub $1500 D/A converters available, during 1997. When he approached Sterophile for a review, he was told bluntly:
"As soon as you decide to run an advertisement in our magazine, we will review your unit". Of course, being the small manufacturer that he was, he really couldn't afford to run an advertisment in Sterophile. Any questions?

Sounds like payolla to me Ehider. If that is true, I would seriously have to reconsider keeping my subscription. It would seem that they do not have the best intentions for those who keep their business afloat. Oh, by the way, that's you and me.

Patmatt, we seem to see this scenario a bit differently. From here it appears that Stereophile does "have the best intentions for those who keep their business afloat." "Those" being the manufacturer's who advertise in their magazine. The readers are just the poor schmucks in the audience who keep the manufacturer's going. That makes us a secondary entity, at best, in Stereophile's pecking order.

Oh, they will *claim* the high ground with regard to the reader as to do otherwise would be paramount to suicide. No readers mean no advertising dollars. But publishers know which side of their bread is buttered. In this case the advertisers are sunny-side up and all slicked down. We're the ones left in the face down position. At least there's butter somewhere in the picture. Maybe a little will run our way...

Hope the butter won't be rancid, Fpeel, by the time it reaches us!