What should be mandatory in every professional published review-

@soix 

Just in case it was not clear,  no disrespect at all. No ding on "professionalism". but folks were talking as if they coudl define high end reviewers like plumbers, lawyers or economists.  Heck, mybe behind screen names we know each other, but many of the top reviewers that i happen to know have very different professions. Investment banking, engineering, defense analysts (seriously!).

It would be desirable to have a comparison with the previous iteration of each piece of equipment reviewed, but that would mean you'd have to own the earlier iteration of every piece of equipment you review. I think any reviewer who does have access to the earlier version of equipment under review would naturally compare them, and I've seen quite a few reviews that do such comparisons. But I think buyers who are thinking of upgrading from Mark I to Mark II of a piece of equipment would be a rather small part of the interested readership. It's far more useful to compare the piece at hand with its competitors.

They don't want to compare their newest stuff to the older stuff because then people would realize there is almost never any difference in how it sounds. They change things cosmetically, add in some marketing buzz words, and voila! Oh, and raise the price, the real goal.