Kudos Italiano.(FORUM)(Letter to the Editor)

I wanted to offer kudos to your potent magazine, the knowledgeable staff writers, the timely articles, and the reviews. Such features that appear issue after issue as Staff Picks- Recordings, Components, Double Double, Scoping Software, and your music reviews are always interesting and informative. It is always a pleasure to receive another issue.

Additionally, I would like to offer a special mention to Steve Baird for his excellent expose of problems with two of Mercury's Living Presence SACD initial releases. The flawed Mercury SACD problem was first and only discussed as well as explained in the The Sensible Sound by your own SGB! Strangely, and even more obviously frustrating, is the fact that the malfunctioning Rachmaninov Piano Concerti #2 and #3 with B. Janis/A. Dorati as well as Janos Starker's J.S.Bach Suites for Violoncello discs were not mentioned, reported or explained in any of the other audiophile magazines or e-zines! The inherent manufacturing problem(s) with these two SACD discs was not unique to just one particular brand of SACD player but seemed to affect many respectable players (Sony, Marantz, Esoteric to name a few). The problem was seemingly universal. A major happening such as this, should have been experienced, noted and reported not only by SGB but by other reviewers from the other magazines, if they attempted to play and audition the SACD.

Universal Music was also secretive and taciturn. They never even alerted the stores about the problem. Many of us returned the SACDs to the ...