What audio magazines would you recommend? (1 Viewer)

[robertLP]

I know there's a lot of A/V magazines out there, and was wondering what people on this board liked. I've picked up a few now & then, but haven't found any that really grabbed me.

I guess I'm looking for SACD/DVD-A/CD reviews, new equiptment reviews of components that cost less than my house, and maybe some FAQ's or how-to's on setup questions. I'd prefer articles more on the Audio side of things but something that doesn't completely leave out Video either.

Any thoughts? Am I hoping for too much?

 

[Jack Briggs]

Robert, your post has been moved to Software/Film for the simple reason that most threads about A/V magazines have been posted here.

As to your question, the "audio press" by itself has shrunk significantly with the rise of the home theater. Stereo Review, for example, is now Sound & Vision -- and it reviews popularly priced components. High Fidelity, formerly the second-largest such magazine, folded more than a decade ago, followed by the longest-running audio magazine, Audio.

That left the field open to the smaller "high-end" audio magazines, Stereophile and The Absolute Sound, which, to this day, still adhere to the largely discredited "subjectivist" approach to audio reviewing -- which keeps the largely dormant "high-end audio" cottage industry with its megabucks turntables and moving-coil phono pickups alive, more or less. I simply cannot recommend those magazines for decent audio reviews, but their reviews of the software are OK. Too, there are smaller magazines that look at specific niches (vacuum-tube audio and such).

So all this leaves you with the big boys in A/V journalism -- Sound & Vision, Home Theater, Widescreen Review, and a host of newer publications. But the one I read regularly is the sister magazine of The Absolute Sound, The Perfect Vision. While its audio reviews are still very much subjectivist, I do like its video reviews as well as the DVD reviews.