gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) (06/18/85)
I subscribe to Digital Audio, and am distinctly unimpressed by the reviews. I've bought several CDs from reviews in Audio, and I've found that their reviews are generally "meaningful". By that I mean that when I bought something they said was great music, I agreed that it was, even if I might not have liked it. In comparison, the Digital Audio reviews are highly uneven... I think that perhaps they ARE written by subscribers. Some CDs that I like a lot, and that got reviews in Audio that I agree with, got poor reviews in Digital Audio. For example, see the recent review of "Big Science - Laurie Anderson" - the reviewer didn't seem to have any idea of what the pieces were about, and was totally unsuccessful in describing the music in any way. Granted, Laurie Anderson is kind of a "worst case", but the Digital Audio reviewer still did a very poor job. I'm seriously considering canceling my subscription... I was unhappy when I read the fine print on one of their "readers polls for the best..." and I discovered that they had 10 (count 'em, *ten*) replies. From 10 replies they were giving you the "10 best CDs" for you to go buy. Since I haven't bought any CDs based upon their reviews, and in fact I don't trust their reviews, its not clear that the mag is doing much for me. gordon letwin p.s. - its only fair for me to point out that I don't think much of Wayne Green (the publisher) - his business practices in the past have been much to "clever" for my tastes... I hesitated to subscribe to DA - I wanted the mag, but I didn't want to support Wayne... this may have coloured my opinions.