Something odd happened the other day. One of our contributors contacted a certain well-respected company with a view to writing an 'in-depth' feature. Surprisingly, the initial response was 'No!' Why was this, we wondered? Further research unearthed the problem. This company was under the impression that a condition of our publishing the article was that they placed a respectable amount of advertising in the magazine. Another monthly had allegedly approached them on just this basis — they weren't interested. Well, we soon put them out of their misery, and the article's going ahead — it'll be published in the next couple of months. Because, simply, we don't work like that. We'd like both manufacturers and readers to know that the articles that appear in Sound International are about subjects that interest us — and, we hope you, the readers. In short, people don't get a mention because of advertising: neither do we mention people only if they agree to advertise. Of course, our advertising department will contact a company that is mentioned in an article, but we're not into shady deals and other forms of bribery. We try to make reviews as unbiased and practical as possible, and we don't alter our reviewers comments. Of course, people make mistakes; reviewers sometimes miss something, or get something wrong: and even respected manufacturers sometimes produce a unit which isn't quite up to their usual standard. In cases like these, we always offer right of reply. If we do criticise a manufacturer, we always hope that the criticism will be taken positively and constructively, and that manufacturers will at least reply to our comments, and perhaps even consider modifications in the light of our criticism. The number of pages of advertising doesn't worry us, editorially speaking, one little bit: at least you can find the features! Of course we want SI to be successful, but we'd rather that success was based on honesty. Because we're here to provide the best service to you that we can; our employers are the ones who like to see a profit at the end of the financial year.