Maurice G.

After spending a couple of years trying to find a good site to buy karaoke versions of the songs I liked, I have found the best three. Below is the review of one of them, thekaraokechannel.com.

The Good

- The quality of the music is very close to the one played by original artist. The sound quality is also good. There is no audible noise. These qualities make it much better than all the free karaoke sites.

- Some of its tracks have lead vocals. They are very helpful for me because sometimes I like a song but I do not know how to sing it. Few of other karaoke sites have this feature.
Some tracks have backing vocals too. I always buy these versions whenever possible because they make my singing sound richer. - It charges $1.49 a song which is cheaper than some other sites. For example,. karaoke-version.com charges $2.99 a song.

- It has multiple formats such as mp4, wmv, mp3 + G so the songs you bought will play in any device.

- Its collection is large. It claims it has more than 8900 songs! I have never found a popular song that it does not carry.

- It allows me to sample the songs I like BEFORE buying it. Each sample lasts about 40 seconds. All commercial karaoke songs have this feature.

- It stores the songs I bought on its site indefinitely. That means after downloading them to my computer, if I lose them, I can download them again. Additionally, I can access my songs anywhere and anytime. Many other karaoke sites also have this feature.

- Its service is quick and convenient. After paying for my songs with my credit card, I can download them and play them right away.

- It allows you to sing online with membership that costs $59.99 a year. I prefer to buy the karaoke tracks and sing them with my friends because our professional audio equipment sounds much better.

The Not-So-Good

- Its videos have only black background while kareaoke-version.com has colorful background which is more attractive.

- It does not offer some free songs as karaoke-version.com

- It does not allow me to suggest a song I need. That means there is no way I can ask them to create a karaoke version for it.

After spending a couple of years trying to find a good site to buy karaoke versions of the songs I liked, I have found the best three. Below is the review of one of them, www.karaoke-version.com.

The Good

- The colorful background of the videos makes these versions attractive. This sets it apart from other sites such as thekaraokechannel.com which has black background.

- The quality of the music is very close to the one played by original artist. The sound quality is also good. There is no audible noise. These qualities make it much better than all the free karaoke sites.

- It has backing tracks for guitar, bass, drum, and piano. Not many of other karaoke sites have this feature. Some of my friends bought backing tracks for guitar to practice with their bands.

- It has backing vocal versions for some songs. I always buy these versions whenever possible because they make my singing sound richer. Most of other karaoke sites also have this feature.

- It has multiple formats such as mp4, wmv, CDG, kfn so the songs you bought will play in any device.
- Its collection is large. It does not say how many it has but from my experience it must be in the thousands because I have never found a popular song that it does not carry.

- It allows me to sample the songs I like BEFORE buying it. Each sample lasts about 40 seconds. All commercial karaoke songs have this feature.

- It stores the songs I bought on its site indefinitely. That means after downloading them to my computer, if I lose them, I can download them again. Additionally, I can access my songs anywhere and anytime. Many other karaoke sites also have this feature.

- Its service is quick and convenient. After paying for my songs with my credit card, I can download them and play them right away.

- It has some free songs.

The Not-So-Good

- It charges $2.99 a song which is more expensive than some other sites. For example,. thekaraokechannel.com charges $1.49 a song.

- It does not allow me to suggest a song I need. That means there is no way I can ask them to create a karaoke version for it.

This morning, November 29,2013, a video clip titled "Lawsuit threatened over fine" posted on cnn.com, showed Kleargear.com fined John Palmer $3500 for posting an online negative comment about it. Below is the summary.

John Palmer Bought some Xmas gifts for his wife on Kleargear.com in 2008. The couple said the ordered item never arrived and the transaction was canceled. After 30 days, Paypal returned the money to John's account. After repeated calls to Kleargear to find out what happened, they posted a negative review of Kleargear on rip-off report.com, saying in part "…There is absolutely no way to get in touch with a physical human being… No extension works…"

Three and half a years later, they received an email from Kleargear stating they would be fined $3500 dollars if the negative review was not taken down in 42 hours! Rip-off report did not allow the couple to delete the review. So, Kleargear sent to the bill to a collection company. Consequently, that caused the couple a lot of trouble when they tried to get some finance to buy a car. The Palmer said they would take their case to court.

I will certainly stay away from Kleargear.com

I was happy when I discovered this site. It offers free English tests. They cover a lot of subjects such as grammar, listening, reading, SAT vocabulary, TOEIC vocabulary, etc. However, this site confused me a lot because of the reasons listed below.

1. The grammar tests just told me my total scores but did not explain where I was wrong. This was terrible because I could not learn from my mistake.
Other tests such as "Find mistakes tests" did explain where the error was.

2. Some of their questions contain grammar errors based on what I learnt from my English teachers in my schools in North America. Then I found out at least one of the persons who created the questions was born in Vietnam. That means English was his or her second language. No wonder he made mistakes in his questions.

3. They don't list their credentials on their site so there's no way I could verify their English skills.

In short, this site does not help with learning English at all.