Electronics & audio
Thump & Tote
Covers portable Bluetooth speakers on value: it leads with the cheap pick, names exactly where that pick cuts corners, and runs no measurement lab.
Thump & Tote brand profile →Independent review sites
Trusted product reviews, one category at a time
Magoo Media Group is 25 independent review sites across 15 categories, built and run by one person who puts his name on them.
Who is behind these sites
My name is Ryder M. and I build and run every site in this portfolio. There is no content team, no anonymous byline and no parent company you have never heard of. If a page on one of these sites is wrong, I am the person who has to fix it, and the contact address goes to me.
The portfolio is deliberately narrow per site and broad overall. One site covers headphones and the cases that carry them. Another covers floor jacks and torque wrenches. Splitting them that way means each site can go deeper than a general review site can, instead of publishing a thin page about everything.
What every site has to do
Every site in the portfolio follows the same rules. Test hands-on where that is possible, and say plainly where it is not. Name the person responsible. Disclose how the site makes money before the links, not in a footer nobody reads. Say when something is not worth buying, including when saying so costs us money.
Today all 25 sites are live, but the archive on each of them is young and none of them runs a test lab. That is the honest position today, and it is written into every page here rather than glossed over.
From the portfolio
Six of the 25 brands, one from each of the largest categories, starting with the one that is publishing today.
Automotive
Jack & Torque
Covers floor jacks, jack stands, car ramps, torque wrenches and OBD2 scanners for a first job under a car, built on published specifications and the ASME PASE standard, and running no test rig of its own.
Jack & Torque brand profile →
Tools & DIY
Arc & Bead
Covers flux-core, MIG and TIG welders, plasma cutters and helmets, sorted by the level a beginner is actually at rather than by process, and running no test lab of its own.
Arc & Bead brand profile →
Home improvement & safety
Siren & Safe
Covers home fire and carbon monoxide safety -- smoke alarms, CO alarms, extinguishers, blankets and escape ladders -- against UL listings and NFPA 72 placement rules, and runs no burn tests of its own.
Siren & Safe brand profile →
Sleep
Heft & Hush
Covers weighted blankets, sound machines, sunrise alarm clocks and sleep masks, filed by the problem keeping you awake rather than by product category, chosen on published specifications and assigning no scores because it has tested nothing.
Heft & Hush brand profile →
Home & kitchen
Lid & Liner
Covers trash cans and nothing else -- kitchen, touchless, pull-out, recycling and the outdoor cans raccoons keep beating -- decided on bag fit, lid noise and pedal linkage durability, running no test lab and printing no prices.
Lid & Liner brand profile →How we work
Hands-on where possible
Where a product can be bought and used over weeks, that is what happens, and the page says how it was obtained and how long it was used. Where that is not possible, the page says so in the same place. How we test.
Funding you can see
The portfolio sites earn affiliate commission. This hub earns nothing at all, which is exactly why it can be blunt about how the rest of it works. Read the disclosure.
One name on it
Every site is run by one person, and corrections go to a real address that a human reads. Send a correction.
Found a mistake, or want to check we are real?
Reader corrections, affiliate program verification and press questions all come to the same address, and I answer them myself.