How to find serious reviews on the internet

talk to the people in the consignment section of a guitar center type of store (note: NOT GUITAR CENTER, just a store LIKE that, that has a consignment shop). In my experience - those have always been the most non-biased and keen people to ask...

Don't think you'll find an unbiased one, for the same reasons as you won't find a really unbiased music mag (Ever see CM give out a 3 or 4? mwuha, maybe if the company just went bankrupt that same month). They need the advertising. So, any really independent big site would have to forego advertising, or risk losing ads over bad reviews. Leaves maybe a few goodwilling amateur sites, who ofcourse cannot cover all gear out there.

Anyway, I only go hunting for reviews without anything specific in mind if I've got money burning in my pocket, but don't want to get burned or buy something uncool for other reasons. Which hardly ever happens. I use reviews in a negative way - find bad news when I want to buy a specific thing, like 'model' + 'issues' in google works wonders.

Even stopped buying mags for the untrustworthiness of their reviews. I can get that in forums too, but get 10 times more balanced and diverse viewpoints. For free, too.

The User Reviws section on harmonycentral.com can be helpful because they are submitted by actual users of gear. Also, I feel the reviews in Pro Audio Review, whcih is a free magazine are pretty good.

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Reviews are meant to give the reader an overview. A magazine reviewer will never be too critical of products from a major advertiser, however, most magazines are advocates for you, the user, and will not lead you astray promising features that aren't there. So, you have to learn to read between the lines. If you can find reviews from multiple sources, all the better.

I find the best magazine for audio gear to be the British magazine, Sound on Sound. They also have an excellent website.

Peer reviews have limited use because they are very subjective and you have no idea of the reviewer's skills or knowledge. Some peer reviewers will pan a product because of ignorance -- their own. So, the better forums will provide better quality reviews and opinions. For instance, when I need an opinion on a new keyboard, synth, organ, etc. I'll go ask at Keyboard magazine's user forum as there are many pros and semi pro users who hang out there, and they know their stuff by gigging experience.

Finally, if you're interested in market, try to make a trade show every year or so. That's where you really learn about technologies and who's who in the industry.

How to find an honest woman in a brothel?

My best gear purchases have been the result of leads from one or two local experts who have steered me the right way.

For software, I pretty much don't buy any without being able to try a demo version.

For hard stuff, I only buy from places with reasonable return policies.

User reviews too often are clearly written by people who just unpacked their new purchase 5 minutes ago.

Sites like this can be good, but keep in mind the ease with which an employee of Brand X can post away on a forum like this, plugging their own company's gear as if they were an ordinary user.