Well, that proves it.

No need to worry about cheep cheesy paper tweeters pointing 45° off-axis creating soundstage audio hallucinations.

Evidence?

An "audiophile," then.

Thanks for successfully derailing the thread to suit whatever your weird agenda happens to be.

Wave mechanics and interference patters are the stuff of basic physics, not audiophoolry.

(But one thing those guys do get right is there is rarely a compelling reason to molest the output signal; even less so based on whim.)

I refrain from lying. Difficult to recreate a TV ad stream, but here's Subaru's own website.
Subaru Consumer Reports & Reviews | Subaru
I highly doubt Subaru did this without permission. Speculating that CR allowed it for a price. Seems to make sense, tho.

I disagree. Tons of car magazines and/or shows have individual evaluations, "10 Best", etc, and their subscription depends on their reaching conclusions. You may assail their conclusions, but that doesn't mean they are bribed. Once that conclusion has been published, those who did well are free to cite that conclusion. Happens all the time, and within ethics.

A different example, from wiki:
"Dahon is the world's largest manufacturer of folding bicycles[5][need quotation to verify] with a two-thirds marketshare in 2006.[6]"

Note the date: 2006. That statement may or may not be still true, but can still be used, with qualification, of it being in 2006. I am certain that if that statement were still true as of 2025, it would say as of 2025. If Dahon's current advertising said 2/3 market share without qualification of 2006 and they currently did not have that market share, I think they would easily get successfully sued.

The writer (and later editor) David E. Davis Jr., back when Car & Driver was based in NYC, famously wrote that the Blaupunkt radio in the BMW 2002 he evaluated, couldn't receive the NYC radio stations if he was on the George Washington Bridge, and refused to withdraw the statement, after which he departed C&D until returning 10 years later as editor and publisher.

It sounds like you do not understand Consumer Reports' concept and history. In the past, they did not let anybody quote them in any manner whatsoever. They vehemently fought against it.
I never said "bribe." No idea why you chose that word. I watched the TV ad from a couple days back and it surprised me. Maybe CR changed that impartiality angle.
It might make sense for me to take a peek at one of their latest issues. Perhaps they now insert advertisements. And I come from subscribing for nearly thirty years back in the day.

I was not aware of that history, or them fighting being quoted (although I'm not sure how they could prevent that). I sit corrected.

The other mags, they like being cited for their Ten Best or whatever, it's free advertising. But notably, decades back, one car mag would pick their Car of the Year, and it would be a terrible pick, invariably from the USA "Big Three", and they were widely perceived as being shills for their advertisers. That was not the mag DED jr worked for, though he was forced out in 1967 because the editor did worry about offending the advertisers. The last mag he worked at and founded, he specifically noted as a quality of theirs, "irreverence".

It looks like they've adopted licensing of their content...

Thanks TDS, that's useful to know.

The future will be monetized. The revolution will be televised.

Jipe,

It's worth adding that Consumer Reports reviews are written for laymen. For example, if you're a TV afficionado, you may not find much value in their reviews, as they will focus more on what a non-expert would appreciate or be irritated by. They're not focusing on that last bit of color accuracy or what would be best for a given room size, etc.

Similarly for bicycles, they don't necessarily know what derailleurs have a good reputation, but they will report their findings upon their observations: Are they reliable? How well does the indexing work? Things like that. Their reviews ARE subjective, but they are unbiased, except possibly a bit of personal bias for each reviewer, which they try hard to keep in check.

Did you read the free part of the review? If you did, I think you might see that they do consider a lot of what you mention. Be open-minded.

No, they're not perfect, but they try and they're far from incompetent, too.

I just bought a monthly subscription. Might cancel after one month, might not!