Optics are better now than ever. So why are
magazine reviews the same as they were 20 years ago?
Now that the market is awash in apos, and now
that SCT optics are so much better than 15 years
or even 10 years ago, and now that you can buy
large Newtonian optics/scopes from a few excellent
sources, it's time for the magazines to dispense
with the "man in the street" reviews and concentrate
on doing real testing of these optics.
Tests on these scopes should not be limited to the
casual viewing tests current being done by the
people at the magazines. The optics should be tested
on proper optical test equipment. The only value
to their kind of field tests is to see how other variables
like temperature (and cooldown time), and actual
use effect the scope. Maybe they find an in-use problem
with the mounting, whatever.
But two such reviews of similar telescopes tell you nothing about how
they perform "relative to each other" and that is the
information the consumer could use to make a choice.

The reason for this is simple. The magazines need to stay at least
one step ahead of copious online reviews by experienced
observers in order to remain relevant. Right now, the magazines are
behind. The only thing that keeps them marginally relevant is the
variability of the quality and accuracy of online reviews.

Why are online reviews better?
Because oftentimes the internet field reviewers have at
their disposal more than just the scope in question and
are able to do direct comparisons between two like scopes.
This is something RARE in the magazines. Rarer still
are actual optical tests, as opposed to ronchigrams
and vague references to the star tests being "very good."
If one more reviewer testing a mass market scope reports
"identical inside and outside of focus" star tests....

The only way the magazines can differentiate themselves
positively would be to establish optical standards that
could be used as references whenever they test a telescope.
Concrete standards. Measurements.
As opposed to the awful, good, better, best nonsense
that passes for some review standards now.

Say someone is trying to decide between two apos, a TV NP101 and
a TMB 100 f6.5. Even if the magazines reviewed the two scopes
in the same year, the way they review and their inability to
differentiate between two optically excellent high end scopes
makes a consumer choice between the two a toss up. They could
say the TV has a faster focal ratio so will provide a wider FOV,
but what if the person wanted to know which scope has the edge on
planets? Basically, they only know that both scopes will work
well, but for $3500 they might like to know which offers the edge.

I think the oddest thing is that magazines are easily willing to
provide information that the manufacturers already provide, and
reinforce that, but they are somewhat unwilling to provide information
the manufacturers don't generally provide, like ultimate optical
performance.

Why should the magazines do this? One, to make them relevant,
two, to allow them to be more relevant than the online consumer
reviews, which tend to vary in their accuracy, depending on
the reviewer. Can the magazines do this? Yes, they have the
resources, they have the time. If the goal of magazines is to
provide enough solid information to consumers to make themselves
interesting and valuable, they have to be better than what is now
free online. If you take all aspects of a magazine and compare them
to the free online information, you will see they are losing ground.
-Rich