Is "WHAT HI-FI" a good read?

PS: In the past I have noticed that some raving 5 star components reviewed by What Hi-Fi only rate 3-4 stars from Hi-Fi Choice (quite a spread I would say). In addition if you go through the old reviews you will see that Hi-Fi Choice has returned various "defective" components to the manufacturers (ones that operated, but that did not seem quite right) for ones that were "right", which shows that they were really listening.

Sugarbie,I agree about the reviews however if you check their monthly testing CD's,it's usually a mixture of styles of music they listen to or at least profess to listen to.
Personally I think this mag is about keeping the low to medium market in the UK buoyant but I'm sceptical about reviews anyway,even in the better mags...

Ben

About their rating system : the price of the components effect the ratings. Like say a $10000 KRELL had a 3 stars rating, does not mean the $300 NAD with 5 stars is better than the KRELL, the KRELL would be far better the NAD in absolute sense, but the KRELL is not favorit against a $10000 Meridian with 5 stars. You can found this writing in the front of list of components.
About their fairness, I would say they are about the only mag dares to let 5 or 6 same price range components go head to head and tell you how good the winner is and how bad the loser is. So I don't see they are afraid to upset the advertisers.
But they only review mid-fi stuffs which it is true. And of course, they don't take time to burn-in.

Bigboy: If they dont take the time to run in the components, how accurate can the reviews be? I just broke in my DAC after an upgrade (200+ hours) and it does not even sound like the same unit that I took out of the shipping carton. Is it a definite that they do not break in the equipment? You think that some of the manufacturers might though, if they don't.

I think to be fair,I'm not sure you can say that they don't break their demo's in,I've seen items such as the Sony SACD's given great reviews, these are notoriously long in running in,if what I read here is true.
They must have some level of professionalism,no?
I think they deal less with the audiophile level of detail in their reviews and just cut to the chase for the ordinary guy who wants to listen to music which excludes most of us.

Ben