For the record - I'm not taking potshots at Samuel. He seems like a very nice, intelligent, and reasonable person and an asset to this discussion. I tend to play the devil's advocate on Audiogon when no one else is doing it and I was just pointing out that he comes from a particular point of view which clearly has interests on one side of the fence, so to speak. Nor am I implying that ANY manufacturer/marketer of audio equipment is involved in what some people keep calling "conspiracy". That's not a word I've ever used here. Advertising and promotion is what equipment makers and suppliers are SUPPPOSED to do, and what consumers EXPECT them do to. If someone (e.g. Stereophile) is willing to help them even further because they advertise, then by all means, why shouldn't they take the help in the form of a review or any other way.
It's the MEDIA that, IMO, isn't doing things quite the way that consumers should expect of them. It's possible that the structure of the whole business/marketing "foodchain" is so "normal" to the media people that they're in denial as to why they're really there, who is paying them to be there, and that they do have unwritten, ingrained rules that they must follow to keep that pay coming in.
But enough on that - I'm just saying that my skepticism has nothing at all to do with the "production" side of the industry, and that Samuel seems like a fine person to me - he just brought up a couple more points that I felt like running with (mostly because it was a slow day at work).
