I can't tell you how many "audio" magazines exist now, because I don't care. But back when there were several that seemed in ever increasing competition to bring us "the inside story" on a set of speakers that to this day I couldn't afford. Don't get me wrong, if the author of the article made a good story it was cool to read about super expensive equipment and the little company in France or whomever it was that built them!
But after a while the descriptions went off into what seemed some mary jane induced pipe dream. Some reviewers were clearly in the thrall of certain manufacturers and gave what I came to believe as slanted articles favoring them, and this seemed to escalate up into the early eighties when I finally closed the door on all subscriptions. I'm aware we have members in the business of writing articles and this is not a shot at any of those individuals, just my collective experience from those years. A dream job for me would be to get comped with state of the art equipment to review..or would have when my hearing was intact. Although reading articles in the few mags I bought in later years, it almost seemed like the affluent lifestyle of some reviewers made you feel like they were rubbing your nose in something....
There, I said it. C'est La Vie!
When I was in the military, we read all these mags, and all we dumb ass kids wanted was a cogent explanation of any equipment, esp. stereo, or articles on SQ/QS/CD4, is that AR turntable that good for the cheap price, etc. and to read the specs on a piece of equipment. Better still were the articles that concentrated on Quad (for a very, very, small few of us) and gave honest opinions from a reviewer's "test drive" of the actual equipment instead of blindly following strictly the manufacturer's flowery self promoting...I mean this is guys in the military, they ddn't pay much in those days, and we had to scrimp and save even at military discount to afford the gear we sought out. ($177/mo was IIRC E1 pay in 1970, and Audio magazines were passed around and became threadbare in short order.
But by God those times were exciting for this 19 year old dumb ass kid inducted from draft board #33! The people I met that loved music as much as I was a very memorable experience that stays with me to this day.
Damn, wrote yet another memory book no one wants to read. I get carried away.