Painting the entire industry with the same brush is IMO just plain wrong. Many if not most that are on this site would have no idea about any of the gear that exists or even know the language without the magazines. Are there faults?of course. are some better than others? of course.
My history with them goes back a very long time and I am not stating this to be anything but factual, without HP and J Gordon alsmost no one would be here or understand anything about the high end audio business and the equipment.
I have learned a lot from them and if honest most would say the same thing. The magazine business model is difficult if not impossible to please all. It was tried as a subscription only one, that didnt work. I can give you a better model but there is no funding that can make it work. They are a business and have to make a profit or at least pay thier bills and break even.
They have provided a huge service to the Audiophile and the audio Industry as well.
1). advertising
2) exposure- without this most of the small builders could not exist
3) descriptions and instructions for best use and results
4) opinions
5) reviews - whether you like them or not as a retailerand know a distributor- everyone quotes them back to us
6) language by which we try to communicate
Catagorizing every reviewer and every magazine as something evil is demonizing all for the errors of some or a few.
All of us can make their own choices and opinions however we are influenced and educated by others. A group that share an opinion is fine however it doesn't make their choices correct for everyone else.
I personally have lots of issues with the way things are done and find much of what happens unfair and an unequal playing field. The real issue to me is what can be done to change that. We have YOUTUBE, online groups, forums etc and although thier is more diverse opinions at the end of the day I am not sure that most of these are better or even equal to the best of those who continue to try and educate us.
Like I said some are educated and informed others just have part of the story which get presented as facts.
What I have said many times is one has to figure out what they don't know. Audio have numerous products, unlimited combinations. various factors like room and set up , and all of these determine the outcome.
Our review process has some that address a lot of this and are IMO honest and reliable and others that are influenced and bias by factors that are discussed. I dont want to paint them all as the same becasue they are not and saying that IMO is offensive and not enlightened.