Was just having this conversation with my brother a few weeks ago. It's all him -haw. I don't see negative reviews from the big review machines anymore. No longer see meaningful quantification of a product in relation to its direct competitors. So many are rated as a value greater than their price tag, that its ridiculous. Everything seems to be evaluated as worth comparing and listening too, or a value, or performs at multiples of its price tag, that its meaningless. This is very similar to what began happening to the automotive press in the late 90s as well. What i see there now is so much worse, with deliberate deceptions, than the audio press we are discussing on this thread. The primary press money is made from the advertisers, not us buying the subscription, so who do you think they are writing for?...or more fairly said, who do you think the editors and publishers are concerned about when they pre-read a review from one of their writers before letting it go to print, or on their website?
There are a few key things I look for in reviews now. If the reviewer makes it part of their reference system, than that product is serious in my book. Next thing I look for is when reviewers from 2 or more venues make the same, VERY specific, observations of certain qualities of a product...that's evidencing to me. The downside of that, is the smaller, yet amazing companies, don't often get 2 or more reviews of a particular product. So, then ofcourse there is AudiogoN and Steve Hoffman.
