Added to the Archives This Week

It's a Mac attack! First up is Jonathan Scull's take on the McIntosh MC1201 monoblock power amplifier. Festooning his listening loft with a pair of the "Great American Icons," J-10 is ready to rumble with "the biggest power meters you ever saw this side-a Milwaukee."

Sam Tellig also gets in on the Mac action with his review of the McIntosh MC2102 power amplifier. For those of you who missed your chance to get one of the limited run of 559 MC2000s (Stereophile's "Amplification Component of the Year" in 2000), Tellig reports that the company has designed "yet another new tube amp—a Son of Big Mac. The MC2102 stereo power amp is the first in a new series that will stay in production for as long as enough people continue to buy them." But should you buy one? Tellig supplies the clues.

You'd think the optimum way to rotate a CD and read the data was figured out years ago. But the folks who created the 47 Laboratory 4704 PiTracer CD transport think waaaay outside the box, prompting Jonathan Scull to remark, "Every once in a while, a piece of super-esoteric gear crosses my path that, on the face of it, makes no sense whatsoever." As J-10 reports, there may be more than one way to successfully spin a disc.

Next, we have John Atkinson's "As We See It" from December of 1989, Accentuate the Positive? JA takes a look at the pros and cons of running negative equipment reviews and comments, "Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that to publish negative reviews is a particularly enjoyable task, only that it is necessary."

Finally, we have the next installment in our "Recording of the Month" series for the online archives: Recording of June 2000: Shostakovich: String Quartets 1–15. Reviewer David Patrick Stearns explains why this set may represent a breakthrough in the performance history of the quartets.

X