LATEST ADDITIONS

Putting multi-format bundles aside for the moment, if you had to pick one primary format for your music, what would it be?

It was an audacious demonstration. For the launch of Aerial's 20T loudspeaker at the end of 2002, Aerial's head honcho and designer, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/467">Michael Kelly</A>, had arranged to compare the speakers reproducing the recorded sound of virtuoso violinist Arturo Delmoni with the <A HREF="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/467">real thing</A>. The setting was the ornate dining room of one of Newport, Rhode Island's many mansions, and, given the inevitable differences&#151;due to the facts that a violin has a very different radiation pattern from a loudspeaker and thus excites the room differently, and that the recording inevitably gives the listener a double dose of the room's acoustic&#151;the demo was successful. There was much subsequent argy-bargying between <I>Stereophile</I>'s reviewers about who would review the Aerial 20T, but it was Michael Fremer who eventually <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/404aerial">wrote about it</A> in April 2004.

Every now and then an affordable product comes along that's so good, even wealthy shoppers want it. Past examples in domestic audio include the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/184rega">Rega RB300</A> tonearm, the original Quicksilver Mono amplifier, the Grace F9E phono cartridge&#151;even Sony's unwitting CD player, the original <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/708play">PlayStation</A&gt;. Based on word of mouth alone, one might add the HRT Music Streamer+ to that lauded list.

<b>A Round of Shots</b><br>
<i>Friday, October 23, 9:35pm</i>

Transatlantic flights wipe me out. Chalk it up to being an old man I guess. But after a connection through a dark deserted Heathrow, I arrived in Barcelona for the 41st Barcelona Jazz Festival and within a couple of days, semi-disaster had struck. Not to me mind you but to American jazz saxophonist <B>Joe Lovano</B> who fell, not once but twice and broke an arm and a shoulder. He had to cancel his show here in Barcelona, his European tour and then had surgery with the chief orthopedic surgeon of Barcelona’s much beloved soccer team, FCBarcelona, presiding. I saw Lovano this morning as he was leaving for a flight home. He had both arms strapped up in this elastic, soft cast contraption but was in good spirits and ready to head back to NYC. He says he’ll be able to play again in about 15 days, but he’ll have to lay off performing until after the first of the year. No word yet however on what caused his tumble, which is the bigger question.

A reader of <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/love_comes_close_again/#COMME… blog</A> states: "Vinyl-download bundles are a complete win-win for me, and I would choose the bundle over a CD every time." How about you? Would you prefer a vinyl-download bundle to the CD release of an album?