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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
joe_coherent
130 posts
 
I absolutely enjoy reading TAS while Stereophile gives me the creeps. The only thing I wish is that TAS shared more information about the products they review, such as the measurements they obviously take, rather than trying to preserve the legend of their "golden ears".
dudleydog63's avatar
dudleydog63
105 posts
 
Gee, nobody mentioned The Audio Critic!
fonsy66
83 posts
 
as long as the bread and butter for that publisher comes from hi-end audio manufacturers,in the way of full page color advertisements and other costly marketing propaganda, honesty won't be #1 priorty.it's about money AUDIOPHILES.
king
4 posts
 
NOT STEREOPHILE IT NOT THE SAME MAG NEW OWNERS CARE ONLY ABOUT BOTTOM LINE THE MONEY?
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
Honesty does not come into it. Altruism does not exist. They are all businesses or have an agenda. As a review mag you need to make some kind of trade-off between being credible so that you get read, and supporting your advertisers so that you can get money for being read. Sadly the most successful press organisations have proved the addage that "nobody ever lost money underestimating their audience". It is nothing to do with honesty. Some mags are just deluded enough to place more emphasis on credibility than they should. My comments relate most accurately to the larger businesses where the only moral thing to do is maximise returns to shareholders. It is a little different with the smaller concerns where the owner is directly involved and cares also about his (or her) personal credibility, independent of its worth to the company. But this just alters the nature of the trade-off. I occasionally read the mags, and have done so for decades - but I do so mainly because they are good reads, secondly because they may give some pointers about which products I should make an effort to read, and occasionally the reviewers let go of some good setup tips. Call me a cynic - you will not be the first.
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