Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site olivej.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!olivej!greg From: greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley) Newsgroups: net.audio,net.music.classical Subject: Re: Audio/Music magazines Message-ID: <180@olivej.UUCP> Date: Thu, 14-Jun-84 12:40:49 EDT Article-I.D.: olivej.180 Posted: Thu Jun 14 12:40:49 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 16-Jun-84 00:40:54 EDT Organization: Olivetti ATC, Cupertino, Ca Lines: 46 The magazines I like best are the hardest to find locally, being either European or of a limited distribution. For record reviews, the most consistently trustworthy I've found are B.H. Haggin's in the quarterly "Yale Review". The hitch is that this is extremely hard to find, even in libraries, even though it is published in the U.S. I find his reviews worth the trouble of searching. To those who like extensive prose in reviews, though, he will be unsatisfactory since his comments are terse and to the point, often dealing with thirty records in a single page. For readers of German, I recommend "Fono Forum" and "Stereoplay". Many U.S. university libraries will have them, although they are next to impossible to find on newsstands. Their equipment reviews are much more critical than those in High Fidelity and Stereo Review, and always contain a "price vs. performance" judgement which I like to see, even if I might end up disagreeing. Of course, there is "Absolute Sound" but I can certainly understand those who find the egoism and adolescent writing style of many of its contributors irritating. I personally find their reviews of sound quality of recordings very reliable but those of performance quality highly unreliable (does anyone with any knowledge of music really think Antal Dorati is one of the podium greats of the age?). "Gramophone" is, at least locally, the most easily available of the imports, but I find its equipment reviews vastly inferior to the English mag "Hi/Fi News and Record Review". The record reviews I find about on a par with "Fanfare" - i.e., much better than High Fidelity or Stereo Review but considerably below Yale Review or Fono Forum in terms of reliability. This is, of course, very subjective since it indicates only the proximity of what the critics say with what my ears tell me. For vocal recordings, though, "Gramophone" has an inestimable advantage in John Steane, since he knows his stuff about the voice better than just about any other writer in the business. - Greg Paley