LATEST ADDITIONS

As Jim Austin wrote in this space in the December 2024 issue, following a medical procedure that he had in mid-October, he needed to take several weeks' leave to recuperate. He delegated the magazine's production to Managing Editor Mark Henninger, AVTech Editorial Director Paul Miller, and myself. The three of us worked with copy editor Linda Felaco and longtime art director Jeremy Moyler to produce the issue you hold in your hands.

As readers probably know, I was Stereophile's editor for 33 years until my retirement at the end of March 2019. However, they probably don't know that for the 10 years prior to my joining this magazine in 1986, I was first an editorial assistant, then Deputy Editor, then, in 1982, Editor of British magazine Hi-Fi News. (In a twist of fate, Paul Miller is now Hi-Fi News's Editor.)

While there haven't been any follow-up reviews in recent issues of Stereophile, the January 2025 issue features further coverage of two one-box solutions that were reviewed in 2024—the Hegel 400 streaming integrated amplifier and the T+A R 2500 R multi-source receiver. All the user needs to do to create a complete audio system is to couple one of these products with a pair of passive loudspeakers.

High-end audio product launches are often modest affairs. The unveiling, on December 5, 2024, of the Oneiros Audio loudspeaker ($650,000/pair) was an exception. A collaborative effort by Fidelis Distribution, Nexus Audio Technologies, and Sohmer Associates, the event, which occurred at the Power Station in NYC's Hell's Kitchen, apparently spared no expense.

Weird Of Mouth: Weird of Mouth; Andrew Hill Sextet Plus Ten: A Beautiful Day, Revisited; Ross McHenry: Waves.

Rex Orange County: The Alexander Technique; Still House Plants: If I Don't Make It, I Love U; Hinds: Viva Hinds.

German high-end audio manufacturer T+A elektroakustik has introduced its Pulsar S 130 loudspeaker, which the company says is part of an ongoing modernization of its speaker offerings. According to T+A, this model integrates technologies and design concepts from its higher-level Solitaire and Criterion series speakers, and is priced at $7490/pair.

Movie characters pondering momentous decisions are sometimes subjected to a raging debate between an imaginary angel on one shoulder and an imaginary devil on the other. Think of Larry "Pinto" Kroger deciding whether to take advantage of his passed-out-drunk date during the infamous Animal House toga party.

Audiophiles, too, are often pulled in opposite directions. But instead of angel's wings or devil's horns, our imaginary duelists are decked out in T-shirts, one with a logo that says "digital," the other with a logo that says "analog." Or tubes and transistors. Or that old favorite, Everything Matters vs Expensive Cables are Snake Oil.

I won't presume to adjudicate these perpetual rhubarbs, but I will confess to facing a battle of my own, waged between the Head and the Heart.