Which magazine and stuff.

It may be personal prejudice, but I found that a (somewhat) heavier cordless hedge-trimmer was less of a problem than a lighter corded model. Wrestling with the cable was always my biggest bugbear.

I seem to remember a test of various Hi-Fi loudspeakers, the tests they applied bore no resemblance to real tests that should have been used. Their choice for "Best Buy" was so far off sensible as to be laughable.

That's as may be but doesn't prevent people - even supposedly clever people - from being absurdley influenced by them. Back when CRT TVs were still sold, my BiL (now deceased) bought a large Sony on the strength of the Which reports. They then sat down and happily watched it. When I next visited, it took me 2 seconds to notice that the colour registration in the top-left quadrant of the screen was rubbish, something easily demonstrated by putting up Teletext on the screen. IIRC, that had a large white-edge box around all the text, so one could see that the white lines in the top-left just split into three coloured lines.

I can't remember if they did anything about it.

Amplifiers also

I found that if you knew anything technical about what they were testing then you tended to disagree with what they considered to be the best (or best value). This is not to say that didn't put the brands respected for quality near the top of their list but just they didn't seem to understand some of the features that they were testing.

I spent many many years listening to amplifiers and loudspeakers and designing both. What sounds best for classical music may sound dull for jazz and inadequate for rock. What sounds good for rock may sound indistinct for orchestral. I figured out what was going on eventually but I don't think any reviewer ever did,

The amount of snake oil involved in the 'so up-market it was running out of breathable air' aspects of HiFi was always truly remarkable.

Massive testing of interconnect leads.

Then there were the 'HiFi' mains leads.

What turned me off one magazine was the article (in 1995) showing that gold-plated mains plugs improved stereo separation.

Were they offering any alleged evidence, or was it all flannel?

They showed tests that gave the answer.

You just needed to use the correct oxygen free, gold plated, directional copper cable to connect them up.

The evidence was the word of the reviewer, who could very clearly hear the difference.

These people dismiss the very idea of double-blind testing, for obvious reasons. Amplifiers were more or less perfected many years ago, but every new design must be *heard* to be *significantly* better than what has gone before, or there would be no way to sell it.

spun by virgins under a new moon?

Its difficult to see what evidence they could have offered. Gold plated loudspeaker terminals are worthwhile. Silver oxide on silver plated stuff makes a crude sort of diode. But Chrome plate is as good really.

The audio signal doesn't go anywhere near the mains .

Anyone can fake data

Yes. After the end of valves, things got worse for around 15 years, and then the advent of power MOSFETS made things better than valves could ever be.

CDS were, once oversampling and decent chips came along, WAY better than vinyl and moving magnet cartridges.

but

The only area where things have moved along a bit is loudspeakers.

In general a cheapo midfi offering is way better than it used to be but top of the line kit is no better than it ever was.

It's all very well for Which to tell us that the most expensive brand is the 'best buy' if you cannot afford it. It follows that if you don't but that one, then what you do buy will always be inferior.

Years ago I went to buy my first Hi-Fi. The shop (probably Dixon's) had their entire range side by side in order of price. They gave me an audio cassette to try each, which I did. Needless to say, as I moved along the line, each sounded better than the one before until I probably paid more than I had intended. Good ploy on their part, but unlike Which Magazine, I got the chance to listen for myself.

Maybe it would have worked out cheaper to start at the top end and choose the one before the first one that you could not accept!

nib

Loudspeakers need to be linear, full frequency range point sources that can move quite a bit of air at low frequencies.

We need magic.