Is "WHAT HI-FI" a good read?

It is good for low end audiophile gear, mostly British
integrateds. Many hear will say it is not real audiophile
mag, exactly right it doesn't try to be, it is geared to the
entry level audiophile gear and I think it is good for this
type of stuff.

I think the monthly shootouts where 4-8 different units of similar price are compared head to head is very
informative.

What Hi-Fi reviewers do not have a clue IMHO. It is also 90% advertising. It's not that they only review low to mid-fi equipment, it is that they seem to like the cheaper stuff over the higher end stuff by the same manufacturer. When the Rotel RCD951 CD player gets 5 gold stars and an editors choice award and the RCD971 gets 3 stars and so so comments, it makes you wonder who is listening. I think they listen to a lot of Rock music so if the component is rough sounding they think it is good.

They also have a phony rating system. A component rarely gets less than 3 stars. Most get 5 stars; and there seem to be three levels of 5 star ratings; 5 stars, 5 gold stars, and then the 5 star editors choice. They do not want to piss off any potential advertiser.

The British magazine that I have always felt does an excellent job reviewing low and mid-fi equipment is HiFi Choice. Go to http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/

I also think you are right and they do not take the time to burn in equipment and match systems. It seems in my experience better equipment needs more burn in time. Maybe why they seem to favor the cheaper stuff as I mentioned above.

There is a lot of consensus that the Cambridge Audio D500 CD player is a great value for a an under $400 CD player. They hated it and thought it was extremely dull and bland, which is how it sounds right out of the box before it breaks in.

I liked the old Hi-Fi Choice a lot (probably because they agreed with my opinion of a lot of the older equipment that they have reveiwed in the past:-). However they seem to have reorganized and the new reviews are not anywhere near as informative as the old. Hopefully they will go back to more in depth reviews as others must have already noted this to them.

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.