Latest amp reviews in Guitarist

Toon

Shock horror.....latest edition of Guitarist reviews Marshall Mini Jubilee and Boogie Mark Five :35.

Guess what?.....8's and 9's all the way. Does anything EVER get < than about 6/10 in there?

kjdowd

I quite like guitarist, and even enjoy the reviews, but I was a bit puzzled that the Boogies got a decent score despite a loud pop when changing channels. That is surely a pretty fundamental flaw?

Babones

They are adverts, not reviews. 

slacker

Wisdom. I actually wrote 4 or 5 reviews for them in the 80's before I got fired for not being able to write. Any comments re tuning problems, playability or poor finish magically disappeared . 

thermionic

Any magazine like this is in a symbiotic relationship with the advertisers who make printing them economically feasible (just about). It's exactly the same with cycling magazines - "You MUST buy these £2000 wheels, they're SO good!" However, it seems that it's only recently we have all wised up to this. I dunno why - maybe it's the differing opinions we can find on the internet.

Some are worse than others, which why one reason I've always preferred Guitar and Bass - I think they're a little bit more honest. Partly because they review stuff outside of the PRS/Mesa/Gibson Custom Shop luxury brand mainstream, and also their excellent DIY articles.

dunstanmus

These companies spend a lot on advertising. A little similar to the the hi-fi mags. The mag won't score it low then expect the revenue from a full page advert.

richardhomer

I'm not sure I fully buy the advertising argument.

Someone I knew in retail used to pay £1000 for a full page ad in Guitarist. Perhaps they charge manufacturers and distributors more - but the potential of £12,000's worth of annual revenue never struck me as that big-a-deal.

And I simply do not believe that any commercial operation would pay for advertising which has no impact. The fact is, print advertising must produce some measurable response, otherwise the advertiser simply wouldn't bother.

dindude

I really don't see the drama or that it's such a stretch to believe that two of the biggest and most experienced amplifier companies in the business release a very good amp - especially as both are based on classic and successful amps for their past.

normula1

kjdowd said:

I quite like guitarist, and even enjoy the reviews, but I was a bit puzzled that the Boogies got a decent score despite a loud pop when changing channels. That is surely a pretty fundamental flaw?

I read that too and raised an eyebrow at the score. 

I seem to remember Boogie making a bit of a fuss about having some trick circuitry to suppress the relay clicks in the regular Mark V

Dominic

Editorial Advertising ...............INFOMERCIALS 

Vintage / Wilkinson / JHS  have taken it one stage further with their own publication which is simply one big advert disguised as a guitar mag

TheMarlin

Magazines rely on advertisers to make their business viable.
An asvertiser threatening to pull all ads is a powerful persuader for good reviews.
I worked in advertising years ago, and personally witnessed Ford pulling this trick, it worked like a charm, suddenly their cars reviewed superbly.
As a result, I NEVER trust reviews, when it comes to guitars stuff, I only trust my ears.

Marlin

randomhandclaps

richardhomer said:

I'm not sure I fully buy the advertising argument.

Someone I knew in retail used to pay £1000 for a full page ad in Guitarist. Perhaps they charge manufacturers and distributors more - but the potential of £12,000's worth of annual revenue never struck me as that big-a-deal.

Obviously this is going to depend on what or who the person you knew was (not expecting you to name them) but it could run slightly deeper than that. 

If you filled a magazine with just small builders it's unlikely the magazine would sell the much as the main (or though not only) demographic of guitar magazine buyers is beginners to intermediate players.  These are readers who will have most of the knowledge or trust entrenched in the big boys like Marshall, Mesa Boogie, Fender, Gibson... 

We tend to only look at magazine advertising as selling products but in fact the scope of reviews also sells magazines.  If Mesa stopped advertising in a certain magazine they would still sell units.  However if they stopped supplying products or refused to allow reviews of their latest amps then people would start looking around elsewhere for comments about it.  We know (or at least suspect)  the pressure like this is applied from the whole Anderton's and the Mesa speaker sim box.

I think the true benefit of advertising is proportional to the size of reputation the advertiser has.  Other than making people aware of products, advertising in a mainstream magazine can add a degree of solidity and trust to smaller businesses but in this angle it's somewhat irrelevant to the big players.

RiftAmps

Coincidentally, I've just been through the review process with Guitar&Bass Magazine. Both the editor and reviewer requested which amps they wanted to look at and spent a good 4 weeks testing them. I've not had to buy an inch of advertising space and nor was I offered to.

I've seen an advance copy of the review (but not the scores) and they've been very honest *warts and all!*, which I really appreciate.

I cannot speak for the other magazines in question but G&B have been brilliant.

9/10

Van_Hayden

The trouble is G&B doesn't carry the weight of Guitarist.

But the effect of guitarist reviews on sales a decade ago was huge. I was at both Matamp and BKP when they got gold awards and the phone never stopped ringing in both cases. That was then....now it's a different story.

YouTube is the next great con - for example when's a paid for demo a review and when isn't it? Any sound engineer with a decent pair of ears can make the worlds worse gear sound at least ok....

Ossyrocks

Back in the day, I was the first UK exclusive distributor of Fulltone effects. I had to beg for them to get reviewed in Guitarist and sent off my wares with fingers crossed. They only reviewed the Clyde Wah and the Fulldrive II, but the reviews were very good. I didn't advertise with them, nor pay anything for it. So, I think on the whole they do try to be objective. I think if something arrives in the office and stinks up the place, then it might just be that they don't print anything about it. On arranging return of my pedals, Neville Martin refused to return the Fulldrive as he wanted to keep it for himself. He did pay for it though! Rob

Phil_aka_Pip

dunstanmus said:

These companies spend a lot on advertising. A little similar to the the hi-fi mags. The mag won't score it low then expect the revenue from a full page advert.

I once read a HiFi News review of an amplifier which gave it a score of 3/10 and concluded that "we will not in future be reviewing other products based on this technology". However that kind of thing is a rarity. I suspect that most products submitted for review are going to score at least 8/10 for functionality and 7/10 for appearance or robustness because otherwise they are not going to be considered fit for purpose. The rest of the review is about how the reviewer felt that it matches the requirements of the target market section, or which market section is going to be most interested in it. Sometimes one does read a review saying "clever product, but it's a solution looking for a problem", but most of the time manufacturers aren't going to waste resources on developing something they don't believe will sell. So I'm not surprised that most reviews give a 7-9 score.

We should take it as read that most products will get scores in the 7-9 range. What we need is that 2-point range to be expanded to 7.1 ... 8.9 so that it is of finer granularity, and that there is more of a perceived difference between good, very good, and stonkingly good.

kjdowd

Not sure I agree with the advertising/bias point either, but it did seem weird that amps with such an obvious flaw (loud pop when switching channels on the Mesa boogies) got a high mark. Generally, though, I think if you read the review rather than just look at the score you get a reasonable fair opinion.

EricTheWeary

I remember some of the first tc tone print pedals being reviewed in GP very positively despite the tone prints not working. But guitar mags are guitar mags, they're not about investigate journalism or consumer rights. Manufacturers / distributors generally aren't stupid enough to send them crap products and the mags are left with an overwhelming amount of average product which they have to find something to say about. Occasionally something innovative or just exceptionally good of it's type pops up and they reflect that. I'm not sure there are any conspiracies going on but just a lot of churn.

Sassafras

How many people would part with the 5 or 6 quid for a magazine that only reviewed crap equipment?

Chalky

The Boogie sounded great to me in their video so why not give the combo 9/10?

matone

Ossyrocks said:

Back in the day, I was the first UK exclusive distributor of Fulltone effects. I had to beg for them to get reviewed in Guitarist and sent off my wares with fingers crossed. They only reviewed the Clyde Wah and the Fulldrive II, but the reviews were very good. I didn't advertise with them, nor pay anything for it. So, I think on the whole they do try to be objective. I think if something arrives in the office and stinks up the place, then it might just be that they don't print anything about it. On arranging return of my pedals, Neville Martin refused to return the Fulldrive as he wanted to keep it for himself. He did pay for it though! Rob

Remember seeing them at a Manchester Show,looked the biz but couldnt afford one for years !! Have 3 of them now ! Lol.