Are Hifi Reviews Flawed?

[hifinutt]

interestingly i always read hi fi plus and in one issue they had reviews on 33 hi fi tweaks
i have about half of them in my system !!! and most i agree with , but i just have for the past few days a piece of mains equipment that is very highly reviewed and publicised in hi fi plus , fairly expensive and you know so far i can`t hear an iota of difference so in this case the review was not right for me

[DSJR]

Does anyone know if the circulation of audio mags is still dropping? It certainly was plummeting in the nineties..

[Kris]

some refuse to admit that different image heights are possible.

They obviously haven't heard the LEDR tests! The 'UP' test is supposed to go 6 foot above the speakers. It goes about 4 foot on ours, which isn't bad.

[The Grand Wazoo]

There are several things that annoy me about most magazines, but the hifi ones in particular seem to be more guilty than most.

• The way so much space is often taken up with lists/old reviews distilled down to 1 or 2 sentences - they must seem like an easy way to fill a few pages, but they're almost irrelavent after you've read them once & they never seem to be updated often enough.
  
  
• Awards - which usually rehash old reviews, but unlike above, distill them down to 2 or 3 paragraphs. They take up so much of an issue as to leave next to nothing of interest to the regular reader - an annoying waste of money.
  
  
• Christmas issues - generally filled with best of the year type articles - another excuse not to write anything new.
  
  
• What's even more annoying about December issues is the 'Ho, Ho, Ho, jingle bells, deep and crisp & even' type prose that fools no-one, as we know bloody well that they wrote it in August or September & they know bloody well that we're reading it in October or November. Why can't the month on the front bear any relation to the month of issue? It seems to be getting further adrift as time goes on.
  
  
• Style over content - photographs which impress on an artistic level generally don't do the job required of them in a technical magazine. A big photo of part of a volume knob (for example) does not impress me one little bit. Nor does it inform me about the product in question - which is what I want from a hi-fi magazine review. HFN's attempt to wow us with spectacular photos a few years ago was hopefully the last gasp of that approach.

To me, all of the above smacks of lazy journalism - a shame because I used to enjoy the British hi-fi press. All of the above plus many of the things previously mentioned by others makes it harder to justify the ever rising cover prices. Even more so if I'm paying for reviews of AV gear which I have no interest in whatsoever - if I want to read about it, I'll buy an AV magazine.

[Rare Bird]

Chris..Aye so repetative audio rags these days..Last mag i used to take was 'Hi-Fi Answer'..Seemed to be decent rag with long reviews not that i ever took much notice of em, the products at this time were plentifull & exciting (with obvious exceptions of course).

[Kris]

The Feb 2010 issue of Custom PC mag came out a couple of weeks ago, so it's not just Hi-fi mags that have the issue dates all screwed up.

One thing I like about Custom PC mag is that if a product they are reviewing is crap, they'll say so and tell you not to buy it. When was the last time a Hi-Fi mag did that? Also, unlike Custom PC mag, Hi-Fi mags tend not to have photos of circuit boards or components. Why not? What is there to hide? 50p caps in £1K products maybe? Hi-Fi mags are generally a waste of money IMO. Hi-Fi World being the exception. But even then I take what they say with a pinch of salt.

[Spectral Morn]

There are several things that annoy me about most magazines, but the hifi ones in particular seem to be more guilty than most.

• The way so much space is often taken up with lists/old reviews distilled down to 1 or 2 sentences - they must seem like an easy way to fill a few pages, but they're almost irrelavent after you've read them once & they never seem to be updated often enough.
  
  
• Awards - which usually rehash old reviews, but unlike above, distill them down to 2 or 3 paragraphs. They take up so much of an issue as to leave next to nothing of interest to the regular reader - an annoying waste of money.
  
  
• Christmas issues - generally filled with best of the year type articles - another excuse not to write anything new.
  
  
• What's even more annoying about December issues is the 'Ho, Ho, Ho, jingle bells, deep and crisp & even' type prose that fools no-one, as we know bloody well that they wrote it in August or September & they know bloody well that we're reading it in October or November. Why can't the month on the front bear any relation to the month of issue? It seems to be getting further adrift as time goes on.
  
  
• Style over content - photographs which impress on an artistic level generally don't do the job required of them in a technical magazine. A big photo of part of a volume knob (for example) does not impress me one little bit. Nor does it inform me about the product in question - which is what I want from a hi-fi magazine review. HFN's attempt to wow us with spectacular photos a few years ago was hopefully the last gasp of that approach.

To me, all of the above smacks of lazy journalism - a shame because I used to enjoy the British hi-fi press. All of the above plus many of the things previously mentioned by others makes it harder to justify the ever rising cover prices. Even more so if I'm paying for reviews of AV gear which I have no interest in whatsoever - if I want to read about it, I'll buy an AV magazine.

They are all pet hates of mine. I don't buy audio annuals anymore. Worst example a few years ago was Hi-Fi News.....no reviews at all just big page filling photos and a few lines of text...it was related to the Eisa awards.... £4 of a joke.

The AV/Home Cinema mags are just as bad imho/e...I don't buy them anymore either.

Regards D S D L

[Peter Galbavy]

It's all about advertising revenue. All of the points above can be explained once you take advertising revenue to be the PRIMARY driver, and not the notional subjectr of any review magazine. It's also why they are dying. The cover date "problem" is the push to get more money from the advertisers earlier and once you move to a 13-month annual cycle it gets difficult to get back to reality. The problem is that the 13th issue never arrives A large proportion of sales of review magazines are traditionally driven by seasonal factors and Christmas purchases are of course a big part of this. Having rehashed reviews, awards and summaries allow you to push the issue to advertisers. Take advertising revenue as the movtive to anything they do, rince and repeat.

Am I being to cynical ? I prefer being known as a realist.

[Marco]

I think you're absolutely right, Peter (and I also fully agree with Chris and Neil), but what use is prioritising advertising revenue if the audience the magazines are aiming their content at isn't buying magazines because they don't like the content?

First and foremost, the magazines should fill their pages with what their target audience want to read, thus ensuring good sales, then worry about the rest later!

Doing otherwise is like opening up a new restaurant and spending all your budget on telling people where you are and what you've got (advertising) and forgetting about the most important thing of all - the food itself!!

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I think you're absolutely right, Peter (and I also fully agree with Chris and Neil), but what use is prioritising advertising revenue if the audience the magazines are aiming their content at isn't buying magazines because they don't like the content?

Exactly - advertising is useless if no-one is reading the adverts! Would you put a billboard up on a road that no-one travels on?