The Absolute Sound vs Stereophile

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.

i used to read 'stereo review' magazine since 1971 to it's retirement. anybody have any thoughts on this magazine?

I used to peruse and collect both, but I decided to stop reading audio magazines when a particular issue of one of them featured not one, not two, but THREE reviews of individual components that each retailed for $45,000 or more. I don’t disapprove of anyone who likes to read such reviews, but it made me realize that those two magazines just no longer had anything to do with me. 

I don’t miss them and I’m happy I had the courage to make the change. 

They both completely suck. Go back and take a look at these publications when they were thoughtful, informative, and nuanced. There were in depth articles about music and high fidelity using sophisticated language that seldom hyped. They were far less commercial, with fewer ads (and those that did advertise were not allowed to quote reviews). TAS had great cover art and both were smaller, uniquely sized. I still get them because they are almost free (to boost circulation figures so that they can charge more for ad space). I look at the pretty pictures, read the vapid, nearly useless music reviews, read the occasional Art Dudley piece and recycle.