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Most Honest Audio Magazine?

I subscribe to Stereophile and I really enjoy reading it but something happened last year that made me raise an eyebrow as to the authenticity of their intentions. Remember the review of the B&W Nautilus 805's? The original reviewer raved about them and rated them "Class A Restricted Low Frequency". Shortly thereafter they demoted the same speaker down to "Class B Restricted Low Frequency". This really hurt the magazine's credibility in my eyes. My first conclusion was that they didn't want to upset the other manufacturers who produced "Class A" products at far higher prices. Shouldn't a trade journal give credit to the truly remarkable products especially when they are produced for relatively decent prices? It's unfortunate that the advertising dollars of the megabuck manufacturers bullied a stellar product into receiving a less than stellar final rating. I'm wondering if this hasn't happened before. I've since heard from some of my audio buddies that corruption does indeed exist in the audio press; everything from reviewers being related to manufacturers to reviewers being offered products for a song (pun intended). Please share your thoughts and experiences when it comes to audio magazines and let me know which ones you'd rate best and worst. Putting together a great system is hard enough without having to sift through the sometimes suspicious advice of those publications who purport to advance the hobby.
canadianguy
tml2
234 posts
 
The best two i have found are Bound for Sound no advertising in this Mag.A lot of the big boys are afraid of this magazine.The other one is out of Canada.UHF very informative will call a piece of crap crap .review a good cross section of equipment.Very little adds from MFG most are from High End dealers.Stereophile is the biggest piece of #$^$%$# that exists.Every review is full of shit and when was the last time you saw them review something that was not advertized in their Magazine.
tubeman2
7 posts
 
AFTER A 20 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO STEREOPHILE I AM GIVING UP. WHEN JGH LEFT THE MAG DID ALSO.I AM SUBSCRIBING TO LISTNER FOR THE LIGHT HUMOR AND GLASS AUDIO FOR THE TECH INFO.THAT NEW YORK RAG I ALWAYS THOUGHT TO BE ONLY AN INFLATED EGO. THE TWOBIG AUDIO MAGS SEEM TO PROVE THAT BUYOUTS ARE NOT FOR THE GOOD.MAYBE WE DEPEND ON OUR OWN EARS.
jkingtut's avatar
jkingtut
28 posts
 
Sterophile reviews now carry that same thread of reasoning that PBS has been allowed to adopt while remaining "commercial free"--- this is not an ad but here is our name, address, phone # and oh yeah exactly what we do while we 'support this station', I have always tried to read between the lines about equipment reviews, if you do it long enough with the same reviewer you can get a sense of what is what, but when Chip Stern lauded the VAC Avatar and the bench decreed it as obviously having something defective going on in a major way, I was surprised that Chip never followed up, and a drummer to boot, you just can't trust anybody including me who bought not only the VAC Avatar (SE), but a used 24/96 Alpha and CL-20 as transport, a la Chip in his review, and now with an all silver and gold cable path, I am glad I did.
rwegrzynebc3
1 posts
 
Forget the rags mentioned above, even TAS, they all stink. Their purpose is to make you fell insecure so you will spend more $$ upgrading your systems on and on and on. They exist for the manufacturers. How do you think Audio Reserach became so popular and profitable; wasn't A.R. HP's personal choice for amps and preamps? Listen to your ears. Read Vacuum Tube Valley, Glass Audio or SpeakerBuilder to understand why equipment sounds the way it does. Also read Walt Benders short quips in Audio Mart, this man knows what it has been all about.
kevziek
323 posts
 
In particular, I want to comment on Stereophile. The quality of the magazine has continually declined in the past 5 years, despite John Atkinson's continued claims of neutrality & objectivity. Certainly for those of us into classical music, the decline is disgusting. Notice the swinging door of reviewers on staff? Not to offend anyone's particular musical tastes, but reproducing a live, acoustical symphony orchestra is the most daunting challenge to any piece of equipment, & should be the standard by which to measure sonic accuracy, NOT Nine Inch Nails or some other heavy metal group. Most of these reviewers are laughable & pathetic. Pompous individuals who have proclaimed themselves authorities. And, as has already been stated by others in this thread, how often do you see a negative review of anything? Many of you know what garbage some of what is reviewed really is, or mediocre at best. The best advice is to listen to a wide range of opinions, & hopefully have some dealerships with some honesty -- & the BEST advice I can give you, is: Learn what questions to ask & ask many, & read between the lines of the responses you get. Then go from there. It's not an easy road to find the truth in this hobby.
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