Time for magazines to improve reviews

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

In article ,
RichA wrote:


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

I agree with Rich here.
The joke that Astronomy has become is probably beyond help, but when Sky
and Tel did their "watch" review, it really made me wonder.

There's dozens of great scopes and accessories requiring a review, and
only 12 issues in a year, better start making those 12 issues count.

I think the internet is well on its way to taking out at least 50% of
the magazine market, only the very strong will survive.

I do 90% of my "hobby" research online now, as opposed to 8 years ago
where 100% was in mags, books, and at the library.

deluxe wrote:
In article ,
RichA wrote:


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


I agree with Rich here.
The joke that Astronomy has become is probably beyond help, but when Sky
and Tel did their "watch" review, it really made me wonder.

There's dozens of great scopes and accessories requiring a review, and
only 12 issues in a year, better start making those 12 issues count.

I think the internet is well on its way to taking out at least 50% of
the magazine market, only the very strong will survive.

I do 90% of my "hobby" research online now, as opposed to 8 years ago
where 100% was in mags, books, and at the library.

I don't think it's so much a case of magazines backsliding, as it is the
www overtaking them (note, I didn't say "the internet overtaking them").
It is impossible to compete with an infinite number of opinions/reviews
by and infinite number of authors.
Sky and Telescope isn't a telescope review magazine. It's a magazine of
general astronomy interest. I don't think there IS a telescope review
magazine.
As to Rich's pronouncement that the the magazines can and should do this
because "they have the resournces, they have the time", I put it to you
that he knows nothing about the magazine business. He is a wind chime
posing as a barometer.

Uncle Bob

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Uncle Bob wrote:


There's dozens of great scopes and accessories requiring a review, and
only 12 issues in a year, better start making those 12 issues count.

I think the internet is well on its way to taking out at least 50% of
the magazine market, only the very strong will survive.

I do 90% of my "hobby" research online now, as opposed to 8 years ago
where 100% was in mags, books, and at the library.


I don't think it's so much a case of magazines backsliding, as it is the
www overtaking them (note, I didn't say "the internet overtaking them").
It is impossible to compete with an infinite number of opinions/reviews
by and infinite number of authors.

Have to agree. And it is true for many hobby areas. Many times this
month's magazine has no info on the latest hardware on the market -- and
the actual reviews lag those on line by months: Can publish immediately
on line but the print cycle takes substantially longer -- really a
factor in those areas like digital photography and computers where there
are new products monthly, perhaps less so for astronomy.

Magazines really have to re-invent themselves to survive, and many have
done so.

Phil

RichA wrote:

If the goal of magazines is to provide enough solid information
to consumers to make themselves interesting and valuable, [...]

It sounds cruel, but really, you don't seem to have a clue.

The goal of a magazine is to make money. In most cases, they do this
by attracting an audience for their advertisers, with articles,
pictures, commentary, etc. They are not going to bite the hand that
feeds them. If not conducting detailed optical tests and printing the
results loses (say) 1% of their potential readership, but saves 100%
of their revenue, to a first approximation you can pretty easily guess
what the magazine will do.

There are, however, interesting ways to appear "objective" which
really aren't. If the magazine does do some quantitative testing, you
may find they won't provide much analysis of the results, or simply
fail to come to a definitive conclusion, or just ignore the tests in
whatever conclusion they reach (this is what some amateur radio
publications tend toward) -- leaving the unsavvy completely in the
dark with warm, fuzzy reviews. If they do the tests, and provide some
substantive analysis, you'll find they only review top of the line
equipment: no lemons will _ever_ be reviewed. (Knowing what not to
buy is just as important as knowing what to buy.) And if they
actually review a lemon, you can expect they'll find something good to
say about it anyways, unless they don't have a contract with the
manufacturer (e.g., the "department store telescope").

Basically, your only recourse here is to find a magazine that derives
all of its income from its subscribers, or (equivalently?) read the
various reviews one can find on the net. My start point is:

www.google.com: name_of_item review

Check both the web and google-groups.

No one takes reviews in an advertising-based magazine very seriously,
and no amount of ranting will change this.