I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff.
Project Farm (on YouTube) for tools / DIY stuff perhaps.
However, I would say that's the price you pay for an independent reviewer these days. He's (presumably) not simply reading a carefully prepared script by the vendor. That he actually pays for all the things he reviews is astonishing. Likewise, I'll forgive him the occasional bad video.
Speaking of, in the electrical tape video you mention, he tests for things he cares about. Presumably you would have want him to test resistance I presume? I would think so too, but in doing some research while responding to your post, that doesn't seem what anybody actually cares about. Most tapes advertise heat resistance only. I can't actually find a mention of tape in the NFPA, aside from checking it for heat-damage, which makes sense as in house wiring you would be using wirenuts, not tape to actually bridge and insulate connections.
Frankly, I can't think of a single time I've ever cared about it being an insulator since I was a kid hacking together batteries and wires. All that said, on second thought, I guess his video is fine after all; in my book, at least.
Things that matter in electrical tape to me is flexability when wrapping wires. And how well it lasts in the sun. I get that the later test takes awhile. He has done a of couple year long tests but I get why thats rare.
It is hard to explain the difference in cheap electrical tape but if I was to take cheap tape and super 33 (or 88 which is a bit thicker) and wrap something with it the difference in how well they conform is night and day. And the adhesive itself is also a lot better.
I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very similar in approach to Project Farm, maybe a bit more technical and thorough. Their focus was on impact drivers, but they have branched out into other power tools, LED lights and hand tools.
It seems like the only way to really get a review is to find someone on youtube who shows the product being used in a way you plan to use it, or someone who does a re-review after a period of time like a year etc
For me, America’s Test Kitchen compromises on quality too much for the sake of convenience. And perhaps that is their target audience, but they dismissed Demeyere’s cookware out of hand for being too heavy and unwieldy, whereas a site like centurylife uses IR cameras and probe thermometers to actually measure heat distribution and retention across different cookware sets.
I don’t understand the “too heavy” complaint anyway; people cook with cast iron (Lodge / Le Creuset) all the time, and it is significantly heavier than Demeyere.
Yes, and they have reviews for cast iron for people that (a) can deal with the weight, and (b) want the thermal 'inertia' of all the extra mass.
But plenty of folks (i) aren't strong enough, or (ii) want something more responsive to heat adjustments.
They have testers of all shapes and sizes: (five-foot-nothing?) Lisa McManus and (six-foot?) Adam Ried would handle things differently:
* https://www.americastestkitchen.com/tour
If something is heavy/unwieldy, and you have hot oil in it, then it can become a safety hazard. There are trade-offs in any engineering decision.