I read with interests about golden ear rewards, best buys, editors choice about speakers from the Absolute Sound mag. How much do these influence your buying decision? How credible are they? Are they not biased? Do they feel pressure from manufactures that do ads in their magazine? Thanks.
I take it with a grain of salt. Look at other magazine reviews--such as Sound and Vision--and some others. Many are posted on this site in the review section. Any magazine that raves about speaker wire and cables makes me rather leery.
I have subscribed to several mags over the years and now take HT, Perfect Vison and Sound & Vision. I take all reviews with a truck load of salt as all these mags usually love everything they review in print. I like the way HT does their reviews as you see a number rating while S&V always loves everything. I have read these mags for so long I usually know what their reviewers will say based on their individual preferences. Perfect Vision for example seems to love all things Sony no matter what it is. I have often wondered how much advertizing plays a part in this issue and we all know they say it is no factor but I'm not convinced. I wish P. Vision would include bench test results like the others. IMO HT has slipped in the past couple years since Brett Butterworth left. Their reviewers are not as good as they used to be but I still look forward to devouring all three when I get them.
I find it pretty easy to read between the lines on Sound and Vision. They will rarely pan anything, but will generally say what is excellent at is price point and they do it according to measurements, besides subjective feelings. They rate at the end of every year the components that they feel are best in the category they have tested. Of course there are a zillion products they and every other magazine haven't tested. And S & V usually has a pro and con tidbit space on each reviewed item. Easy enough to decide which things are more or less important to the individual.
At least David Ranada and Tom Pohlmann in S & V are audio engineers--as opposed to most other writers in other magazines.
Try finding a place where you can read the last 10 years of The Audio Critic--it may change your viewpoint of audio. At most they only publish 2-4 copies a year and are almost universally hated by the high end magazines. If you read it--it will be obvious why. Probably the only audio magazine they gets the best audio engineers writing them letters and explaining phenomena and what is BS and what is not. This magazine is hated because it often exposes the Emperors New Clothes and has no problem offending any writer, company, or magazines reviews and philosophy. A thinking persons magazine.
They graph the power curve and leave it up to the reader how inportant that is, rather than make up some BS that there is a sweetness and speed to the receiver, etc. UGGH.
I trust a rarely published magazine far more than all the others put together--The Audio Critic"--written by audio and electrical engineers that most of the industry dislikes. Particluarly the high-end. They take most things apart and give detailed reasons with little to no hyperbole over the performance. They pan lots of products.
It is a magazine that is written for the scientific minded skeptic that doesn't buy into marketting slogans--they base it on measurements and listening performance--which they find almost always go hand in hand--as opposed to the high end which find there is no or little relation.
Being a scientist, I find there is usually an enormous relationship between measurements and performance. There is also a point where we cannot hear the differences, as human hearing is senitive to some things and not others.
I prefer the british mags "What Hifi?" and "Hi-Fi choice" because they tend to review more resonably priced equipment and will rank amongst price levels. Now some of the things that they review can't be had in the US, but it is still interesting. If I want to know the best $500 cd player, I can learn that.
I find that Stereophile and TAS review products that I don't see locally and will never be able to afford. JA from Stereophile is a recording engineer, so he can evaluate his recordings on systems. (wouldn't I love to have Nigel Godrich tell me how accurate my system reproduces his engineered albums).
I don't care for Sound and Vision as I feel the mag is afraid to give a bad review and loose advertising dollars.
I read the magazines. But I go listen to speakers I am interested in before I ever buy any. I trust the magazines more on television reviews than on electronics.
Only use the various magazines as a potential guide--not as a GURU. That way disappointment lies.