jdza said:
Did not want to hijack another thread but jdza's post in that thread intrigued me
Used to subscribe to HFN but let that lapse a year or so ago. Not enough copy was devoted to describing the sound but at least more than HiFi Choice. I do miss Keith Howard's excellent articles. But the British obsession with stars or percentage scoring system leaves me perplexed. Does a ?500 amp with say 80% sound quality rating sound "better" than a ?1000 amp with a 70% SQ rating? Dunno. They did try to addres this with "value bands" but not satisfactorily.
Stereophile still ranks right up there and is cheap either through Zinio subscription or via printed edition. Excellent detailed reviews. TAS is a distant cousin.
The free Internet mags are not up to scratch IMO. To focused on finding the next killer product from some small kitchen table manufacturer. You get what you pay for (IMO again)
But IMO the best mag by a country mile is Martin Collom's Hi Fi Critic. It has no adverts so is nose bleedingly expensive especially considering it is only published quarterly. I hark for a cheaper Zinio addition. Their reviews are superb in that they go into great detail and they are not afraid to say that eg an expensive preamp ?4000 is not as good as a Creek ?300 passive. Which other mag has such "balls". (sorry Pappa3 for the offensive language). also the Colloms scoring system does not suffer from the same maladies as the other British mags.
Enough has been said (including me) on AVSA in prior posts so no more from me on that front
Wish I could read Japanese so I could form an opinion on Stereo Sound.
