Audio magazines were dependent on advertisers, of course, and many of those advertisers were the sorts of companies selling bullcrap gear like magic speaker cables and other such snake oil.

So you had the "journalists" in these magazines writing all this ridiculous crap singing the praises of magic speaker cables or whatever.

The cycle continues today, in a way, with some Youtubers equally dependent on the income from those sorts of sources.

The hobby as a whole has, THANKFULLY, largely moved away from the snake oil though. Lots of solid objectivists out there now. Snake oil salesmen can sway a magazine or an individual with money, but not an entire community. Lots more truth these days.