Stereophile's refusal to review more low

My father worked for Meridith Publishing (Hearst) for 40 years and the subscription income does not even generally cover the printing expense of a magazine. It is the advertising dollars that make it profitable. I am not making any accusations against any publishers, just stating the reality of the industry.

Especially at a buck an issue.

True, but what I think the last two comments fail to realize is that the advertising wouldn't be there if not for us. That is, the subscription holders. WE are the targeted group that these advertisements are aimed at, are we not? The strong implication made by Ehider above educates us to some disapointing realities. For starters, we have a magazine under fire here that seems to have possibly lost its course insofar as that its original goal was to educate the reader about this industry and the wares it would hope that we purchase. If a product submitted for review performed well, we would be told about it honestly and without reserve. If same said product performed poorly, the SAME RULE APPLIES! The aforementioned implication instructs us that this is absolutely not the case.
Folks, the issue isn't economics. Allow me to assure those of you who read this post that I am keenly aware of money, its value, what it means and what it does not. If anyone wants me to accept that I must knowingly be misguided in order to keep any enterprise afloat is sorely mistaken. There is a responsibility on the part of any publication, be it magazines, the 11 o'clock news, or my high school newspaper to report that which is newsworthy. And, to do it fairly and honestly. I feel sorry for those who accept less. Not only do you give the go-ahead to those who would cheat you, but ultimately - you get what you deserve.

I guess you could interpret the comment that Stereophile wanted to see ad revenue before a product-for-review submittal as meaning that that product would then get a good review as well, but that's not how I interpreted it. Stereophile has leverage with manufacturers - with as established as they are, the manufacturers need them worse than they need the manufacturers (at least individually), so it seems plausible to me that they could be saying, "show me some ad revenue before you submit a product for review" while still feeling free to communicate honestly about how the product performed.

Certainly, a purist quest for "the best" would be limited by such a policy, but I think it's outside the scope of a single magazine to review everything anyway, so I don't really expect to Stereophile to find the holy grail. I do expect them to report accurately and honestly on all products reviewed, and don't think that their purported policy precludes that. -Kirk

years ago, s'phile made a comment about stereo review referring to there reviews alnog these lines: "of all the speakers i have reviewed, this speaker is definitely one of them." well, now that stereo review own s'phile, it's getting closer to that... s'phile, for all intents & purposes, now *is* stereo-review. most telling for me, was when jgh, s'phile's founder, left the magazine to write for tas. ya, i still read & enyoy s'phile, but i take it all w/a grain of salt re: the equipment... i'm more interested in the info about the direction the industry is taking. between the rags, this site, other sites (like arthur salvatore's), conwersations w/store owners, mfr's, etc., i come to my own conclusions about what's worth looking into... no *one* source should be used by anyone as a basis for seeking audio nirvana - spread out the feelers in as many different directions as possible.

doug s.