Yes, but we all have to start somewhere! Which would you recommend as a starter for a "reasonably" well read common reader? I've taken another look at Mandelbaum and I'm swaying away from Musa. The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation (OG) quotes the start to canto 27 from these two authors and suggests (and it's obvious!) that Mandelbaum is smoother and more poetic. I might add he's also more compact and understandable, at least for me.
Cary gets honourable mention in this forum, and he's available in Wordsworth Classics with good notes! But here's Canto 27 from Cary:
CANTO XXVII NOW upward rose the flame, and still'd its light
To speak no more, and now pass'd on with leave
From the mild poet gain'd, when following came
Another, from whose top a sound confus'd,
Forth issuing, drew our eyes that way to look.
I would suggest this is not suitable for a beginner, at least not for this beginner! I've read most of Dickens and several other Victorian authors, but that hasn't made Cary transparent to me. The three translators quoted in OG are far easier to read on every level...
Musa Portable Dante seems to be too light in notes. For instance, in the first canto there is talk of a planet from which light beams. This beginner was left wondering, "which planet is that then." Mandelbaum explains it is the sun, and a little about Ptolemy's inclusion of the sun amongst the planets. Musa says nothing, just in his (too long winded) intro. to the Canto kind of hints it.
Finally, Mandelbaum comes in a good, inexpensive hardback Everyman edition, much nicer than the paperback versions. All in all, I'm now favouring Mandelbaum.