I have bought this on and off since it started; mostly due to an unnatural desire to look at pictures of stuff I can't afford.
Probably the most significant words in this thread!
That's it chaps! At times when you can't take your systems any further, the next best thing is to indulge in some wishful thinking about what you could do if you won the lottery. And these magazines enable you to do just that. Reading about hi-fi is almost as big a part of the hobby as listening to the music.
Now believe me, there have been occasions when I would love to have written a review and said something like "This item is fantastic, sounds great, is priced reasonably, and looks OK too!" added a quick picture and left it at that. Well, even if the editor would publish a review like that, I bet I would have loads of complaints from people who felt cheated out of a good read.
That's not to say that I am defending all reviewers, and I too find a lot of the stuff written is hyperbole, to put it politely. The danger is, when you are padding out a review so the reader gets his pounds-worth, you run into the minefield of saying something simply for the sake of filling more column inches.
Also keep in mind that it is very difficult to write reviews on a regular basis and say something new/different all the time. Think about it, how many different things can you say about a piece of hi-fi - it's depressingly few!
I do try to keep to the facts most of the time but this is a subjective hobby and unless you go in for objective measurements (which have limited value anyway) you have to be somewhat subjective. Fortunately, in my case, I don't get paid, and the publication that I write for does not charge the readers anything, so I don't feel so obliged to write much more than I want to.
And as we don't do advertising, there is no pressure to perhaps add a bit of promotion into the review either. But remember, without the advertising, the hard-copy magazines would cost you far more than a few pounds, so you have to accept that there may be some 'compromises' in the articles that you read in them.
In conclusion, and as the OP stated, these publications are as much about a world of fantasy, as practical advice on buying hi-fi, and should be read as such, or left on the shelf at the newsagents! That's not to say that if you have spent your hard-earned money on them, you don't deserve a good rant of course!
