I believe many people invest far too much emotional capital in what reviews "should be."

For me they are interesting reading material but I can't remember a purchase I've made that was based only on a magazine review, whether print or online.

Reviews are useful to me in the follow ways:

1. If I am in the market for something, reviews can be useful for adding candidates that warrant further investigation.

2. Reviews are useful for keeping up on industry gossip as respects what's new and fashionable. Those fads and fashions may be of interest to me or could be further evidence of how low we've sunk as a society. ;-)

3. Mainly I just enjoy reading about audio since it is an area of interest for me. Sometimes articles are educational and sometimes the author is full of it or comes from a direction that simply doesn't connect for me.

What magazine reviews will never be for me is some kind of holy writ or scientific reference text. I think people make a basic mistake when they try to elevate what is essentially hobby-based reading entertainment to a level of authority that is neither deserved or intrinsic to the format.