LISTENER Magazine...What Do You Think?

I've subscribed for two years and at first thought it was the best mag out there. It has slowly metamorphosised into dealing almost exclusively with low power tube amps, esoteric horn loudspeakers, and articles that are big surveys of a group of components around the same price. Now this last point is not such a bad thing, unless of course you're not interested in that particular type of equipment, in which case it consumes the whole equipment review section. A case in point is a recent issue where every contributing reviewer told us how they clean LP's. Not exactly strong enough material to do a whole issue. In addition, I find the column The Audio Police to be well nigh incomprehensible. And in general I have found what used to be a lighthearted and quirky sense of humor to be getting a little darker and holier than thou. I don't mean to be too critical, but I used to anxiously await receiving each issue and now I don't and that's a shame.

I really like it, but I'm just nearing the end of my first year of subscribing, so it may start striking me in a similar manner over the coming issues. I like the writing style a lot - it's written from the point of view that, while being a professional reviewer, their perspective is very similar to any of ours as avid users. They clearly love audio for the music's sake, while still having an appreciation of what makes fine gear fine. While I agree that sometimes their humor slips over the line into being a bit holier than thou, I like the fact that they bring a big (and generally good) sense of humor to what is, after all, a pretty non-serious subject. -Kirk

I subscribed for 1 year and thought much the same as Jond. In particular I also thought they were biased toward the low power tube stuff and analog sourcing. I saw the issue where everyone wrote about record cleaning and threw the rag in disgust! I respect the vinyl-phile, but I ain't going there in the near future. Yeah, I read some stuff that kept me interested here and there, but I no longer subscribe. Everything about this magazine felt foriegn to me and always left me empty, uncomfortable, and (for lack of a better word) frustrated!