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Integrated Amp Reviews
PS Audio GCC-100 integrated amplifier
Robert Deutsch  |  Jan 22, 2006  |  0 comments
Lovers of Italian wine, travelers to Italy, and, of course, Italians, may be familiar with this story. It seems that in the year 1111, Henry V was traveling to Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. A member of his entourage, one Giovanni Defuc, was very fond of wine, and had the practice of sending ahead one of his servants to sample the wine in each place. When the servant found a wine that he particularly liked, he would write "Est!" on the door of the establishment, which was a signal to his master that the wine is (est) good. Having arrived at Montefiascone, the servant found a wine he thought so superb that he wrote on the door of the inn "Est! Est!! Est!!!"
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Phono Preamp Reviews
PS Audio GCPH phono preamplifier
Robert Deutsch  |  Jan 22, 2006  |  0 comments
PS Audio's first product, back in 1973, was a standalone phono stage; more recently, their PCA-2 preamp had an optional phono board. The GCC-100 integrated amplifier that I review this month has no room inside for a phono board, so they've gone back to producing a separate phono stage: the GCPH ($995). Like the other products in PS Audio's current line, this one is based on the Gain Cell, one module on the input side connecting to the cartridge, followed by a passive RIAA curve (with a claimed accuracy of 0.1dB over the 40dB range of the curve), and another Gain Cell on the output side.
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News
XM Beams Mozart Live from Salzburg
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 21, 2006  |  0 comments
Extra-terrestrial radio is poised to celebrate Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday. From Wednesday January 25 through Friday, January 27, XM Satellite Radio will broadcast live performances by many of the most celebrated Mozartians of our time direct from the Carolino Augusteum, a 17th-century castle and former home of the Archbishops of Salzburg that overlooks the Salzburg Cathedral and the Mozart Platz. Artist interviews and sound portraits of the Salzburg milieu will spice up the proceedings.
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Wes Phillips
Friday Cat Blogging 2
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  5 comments
Huck: "Heh heh heh. Snooze, you lose, baby!"
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Wes Phillips
Friday Cat Blogging 1
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  3 comments
Bagheera; "Who dares to steal my perch of power upon the CD player?"
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Wes Phillips
Accordion Guy's Disappointed in Margot Timmins
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  1 comments
Joey deVilla, aka Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, is disgruntled (trust me, Accordion Guy is at his best when he's not gruntled). His beef? The fundraising dinner held last night for Canadian MP Sam Bulte, aka Hollywood's MP, because of the perhaps coincidental linkage between her advocacy of extremely restrictive copyright legislation and her acceptance of financial support (57% of her campaign war chest) from institutions such as the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, Canadian Publishers Council, and the Entertainment Software Alliance.
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Wes Phillips
Mark Twain vs Tom Sawyer
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  1 comments
I love Twain and view UC/Berkeley's Mark Twain Project to print everything. ever written by Sam Clemens (even down to the individual drafts) as God's own work. Yet, like many readers (including Ernest Hemingway), I've always had a problem with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn's final chapters—say, around the time Tom Sawyer highjacks the novel.
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Wes Phillips
I've Suspected This For Years
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  0 comments
Does HT surround-sound only need to be "good enough?" According to a new NIH-sponsored study, "the circuits in the brain that process auditory information are influenced powerfully by the circuits that control where the animal is looking—the animal's direction of gaze." Umm, the animal being, for the purposes of this study, a barn owl.
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Wes Phillips
More 21st Century Neologisms
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  0 comments
Favorites:
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Wes Phillips
Free Music
Wes Phillips  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  0 comments
I love Cantaloupe Records. David Lang's The Passing Measures is one of the most beautiful compositions I've heard this millennium and Phil Kline's Zippo Songs was my hit of CES2006. While supplies last, you can order a free Bang On A Can/Cantaloupe Records sampler and find out for yourself how good their recordings are. Adventurous and different—and did I mention free?
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