I love those reviews!
About Audiophilia taken seriously; I do take it serious, but it is completely unexplainable to people that you need to spent several thousands for a half decent sounding stereo, albeit with compromises because a real good full range set will set you back even more.
The components needs to be selected carefully with synergy to each other, ones taste, the room etc. Then it needs to be set up; not-too-small-speakers preferably halfway in the room, measuring polarity, accessories like power supply, decoupling, perhaps cables....For getting really deep bass in a normal living room this is not enough; you need really large speakers and room treatment. Preferably a dedicated room.
As you can see in my sign I've got a modest hifi which sounds great because I spent literately years and years to put it together.
And I love it, but it costed me more, much more, then my PC, IPA, Sony Walkman+IE8, 42 inch plasma TV, my book reader, smart phone and all my other -often- top-of-the-line electronics together.
And all that other stuff is much cheaper, much more versatile and works out of the box (except of course my windows PC).
Is it a wonder that the sane majority prefers a cheap home theater set and doesn't listen to music, except from their cellphones?
If music reproduction was as easy and affordable as a tv (one box, pay it, take it home, unwrap it, give it power and a signal and enjoy) I think much more people would be like me and prefer listening to music to watching tv. Now almost everyone I know has a cheap set that sound so horrible that no one ever sits down to enjoy an album; they put on the radio when vacuum cleaning. And when they see a hifi magazine at my place they wonder about how crazy the very wealthy people out there must be that actually spent thousands just a 2-channel source, often called 'a bargain' by the reviewer. Or they read a review about this years top-of-the-line new Nordost cable that is so much more superior then last years topmodel, and it is less then twice as expensive.
They have entered a real hifi shop, usually just once in their lives; there they see amps consisting of several extremely heavy full metal crates tied together with cables big enough to anker ships with, spread over the floor and costing 6-figures and they meet a mad sellsman who, after hearing about their laughable budget, directs them to some backroom with the small stuff clearly struggling to stay polite and interested. So they fled to f.i. a media market and buy their ht-set, for less money then that salesman asked for his favorite interconnect.
Frankly, I can't blame the majority at all about not being interested enough to spent so much time, money and effort to realise a simple wish, enjoyable music reproduction.
N.B. I know you can get good stereo for not a large sum, but you still need some skills and knowledge to choose and set up properly, and you still will pay more then the average all-in-one ht-set.
