Chutzpah!

Thanks for the comment. Just to clarify, we've published quite a few show reports from CES on The Absolute Sound, TPV and Playback sections of the site. The show report for the Golden Ear Club is the version that will be published in The Absolute Sound magazine. Some people had asked for earlier access to magazine material (it is all published here after the magazine comes out -- a delay occasioned by subscriber requests). We've reponded to that need (as well as to the interest in briefings from our editors, technology guides and opportunities to buy special equipment). Naturally, the work needed to provide this isn't free, so we charge for it. Put another way, if we didn't have GEC, would wouldn't have the people who edit and post this material so it would simply arrive later or not at all.
 
I would add that we've at least tripled the amount of free content on AVGuide in the last year. This is during a period when advertising revenues fell dramatically (as they have in the rest of almost every economic sector, though specialty consumer electronics was particulary hard hit).
 
Unmitigated gall? I don't think what we've done fits that accusation. We're honestly trying to deliver better value to our customers in  a very tough environment.

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Certainly one can debate each of the decisions we make. At some point, a small company has to run with a process that can be repeated and which serves major customer groups. In this case, most magazine editorial goes on the web 60 days after the issue is printed. Magazine buyers asked for something like that, because they felt they had paid for it (which they have) and should not have the edit given away earlier. As I explained, we added GEC content for those who want the magazine material sooner, and we did it in a way that doesn't violate the spirit of the deal we have with magazine buyers. In that same spirit, we could create a complete show report PDF as a paid download, but experience says we wouldn't sell enough to cover our costs.

You have a news and quick access orientation; not everyone does. We have a product for you, but you don't want to pay for it. I can appreciate that, but I don't have a solution that we can execute. Many readers of the print magazine do not share your orientation, they use the mag to roll up the most important items that have happened recently -- so a show report summary in the magazine is valuable to them. They like the frequency and the format.

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Sunday,
 
I understand where you are coming from, but where are you going to go?  The other magazine's forum has the same two or three guys arguing about whether cables make a difference - in every post!
 
The value of the site here is that you can interactively engage with the best experts in the business as they are reviewing the products, you can discuss your experiences of the products with them, and most of them respond!  As Mr. Martin points out, if you are really interested reading that review of the Plinius integrated 2 months earlier, you can join the GEC.   If not, is it that big of a loss?

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