Rating: 
Summary: The best, not excellent
Review: I bought this and listened to a couple of chapters I thought would be appropriate to show the scope of the reading: Matthew 1, 1 John 1, and Galatians 3. The intonation, pace, and emotion are generally appropriate for these verses. At times the reading is slightly awkward, but generally not to the point of distraction. My own ideal is to have a reading that sounds as if someone is actually saying these words for the first time - that may not be everyone's.
So, while this is by no means a perfect reading, I do believe it is the best available (of the NIV anyway, and to my thinking if you favor another version intelligibility is not your primary concern). McLean is a trained actor, and it comes through in the quality of the reading/performance. This is the most natural-sounding version I know of (contrast with Zondervan's version of the NIV, a sample of which is available on their web site).
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good but some negatives.
Review: I enjoy listening to this Bible on my ipod and use it quite a lot. As another reviewer noted, you have to change the names to get the chapters listed correctly and in order, which was a lot of work. I HAVE found some mistakes in the reading, (Ex: Isaiah 2:4 repeated phrase) which of course is never good for a Bible, but am so familiar with the Bible that I do recognize them when they pop up. One of the most annoying things though is how Mr. Lucado does not use commonly accepted pronunciations for Bible names. Also sometime he puts the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble, if you get what I mean. I would suggest that the companies who want to put out a Bible of this sort find someone to read it that not only has a nice voice, like Mr. Lucado, but also is familiar enough with the content that he can read it correctly. At times the meaning is skewed because of the way it is read. So, there are some things I would like to see improved in future versions, but having said this, I'm very thankful for this early version that I can take everywhere with me easily on my mp3 player.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: I purchased this MP3 version and am broadly speaking very pleased with it. There are some occasional infelicities such as McLean pronouncing "news" as "noos", breathing in the wrong place, reading a little fast at times etc. However, my big bugaboo, and main reason for only awarding 4 stars is the fact that you have intrusive chapter announcements occurring right in the middle of the great narrative passages in the historical books and the gospels, frequently in places where the narrative overlaps from one chapter into another. There must be a better way of doing this, if indeed you need to do it at all, probably when you come to a natural break in the storyline at the beginning of a new paragraph. Other than that this is a fine piece of work and the MP3 format is wonderfully convenient compared to having lots and lots of tapes or CDs.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: I purchased this MP3 version and am broadly speaking very pleased with it. There are some occasional infelicities such as McLean pronouncing "news" as "noos", breathing in the wrong place, reading a little fast at times etc. However, my big bugaboo, and main reason for only awarding 4 stars is the fact that you have intrusive chapter announcements occurring right in the middle of the great narrative passages in the historical books and the gospels, frequently in places where the narrative overlaps from one chapter into another. There must be a better way of doing this, if indeed you need to do it at all, probably when you come to a natural break in the storyline at the beginning of a new paragraph. Other than that this is a fine piece of work and the MP3 format is wonderfully convenient compared to having lots and lots of tapes or CDs.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally...
Review: The audio version of the Bible that I've always waited for...read with passion & conviction. THANK YOU !! (Listen to this MP3 version with Winamp and DFX (free) plugin for great sound quality)
Rating:
Summary: Finally...
Review: The audio version of the Bible that I've always waited for...read with passion & conviction. THANK YOU !! (Listen to this MP3 version with Winamp and DFX (free) plugin for great sound quality)
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is a fantastic product at a fantastic price. Yes, you have to be able to play MP3 files (or convert them to audio files), but you get a very handy carrying case and only seven (7) CDs -- hard to believe that would include the whole Bible in NIV translation.
When I first listened to Max McLean on the cassette version, several years ago, I was thrilled. I was worried about the quality when going from audio to MP3. Now, I have transferred many sermons from CD quality to MP3, so I also knew that it can be done well and still save a lot of space. These CDs do just that -- great audio on one-tenth the number of CDs.
The audio chapters are short and make it easy to skip around. The reading is dynamic, articulated and dynamic. Just all around great.
Rating:
Summary: Virtual Bible / Well worth the money / MP3 Player Causion
Review: This is my 3rd audio Bible. My first was dramatized, second with Alexander Scorby. This by all means my favorite. It is like I step into a Virtual Bible. I put my headphones on and all the imagination my brain can harness paints a picture before my eyes. My big beef and main reason for not giving it 5 stars is because of a technical issue. I had the purpose of listening to this on my Creative Labs 40GB Nomad MP3 Player. The struggle was that when I imported them into my "Real" player all the names for each chapter file were the same. So I had to rename each file and give each file a CD track # so my MP3 Player could play each track in each book in the proper order. Otherwise very well done.
Rating:
Summary: Virtual Bible / Well worth the money / MP3 Player Causion
Review: This is my 3rd audio Bible. My first was dramatized, second with Alexander Scorby. This by all means my favorite. It is like I step into a Virtual Bible. I put my headphones on and all the imagination my brain can harness paints a picture before my eyes. My big beef and main reason for not giving it 5 stars is because of a technical issue. I had the purpose of listening to this on my Creative Labs 40GB Nomad MP3 Player. The struggle was that when I imported them into my "Real" player all the names for each chapter file were the same. So I had to rename each file and give each file a CD track # so my MP3 Player could play each track in each book in the proper order. Otherwise very well done.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent performance
Review: This is so much more than just hearing the Bible read. Max McLean shows a passion for the word that is very moving. I delayed getting this for some time, because I'm not a particular fan of the NIV translation, but after hearing some samples I realized that the strength of performance overcomes any imprecision in translation.The audio quality of the MP3's isn't quite as good as the audio CDs (the MP3's are 96 Kbps, 44 MHz), so if you aren't concerned about the price difference or the extra bulk, the audio CDs might be the way to go. Even so, I wouldn't say the lower sound quality is a significant distraction (just a bit of "tinny" ring from time to time), and the MP3 format is very convenient.
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