Some folks proclaim that the iPod will be the death of high-end audio, while others claim that it will bring new generations into the fold. Are the numbers of audiophiles increasing or decreasing? Why?
The first thing that strikes you about <I>A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story</I>—a 3-CD (plus a bonus DVD) box-set that spans the career of drummer Roy Haynes—is just how wide and varied a span it is. It opens in 1949, with Haynes as a sideman to Lester Young, proceeds to sessions with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, and Nat Adderley; moves into ‘60s avant-modernism with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, and Chick Corea; and cruises into the ‘70s and beyond (he is still very active at age 82) with bands under his own leadership.
Jazz fans rejoice! Not only is <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cedia2007/090707bluenote/">Music Matters</A> releasing new 45rpm double LP reissues of classic Blue Note titles, but so is Analogue Productions.
<B>Jammie Thomas Appeal:</B> Just weeks after having been found liable for <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/100807jammie/">$220,000 in damages</A> for allegedly offering 24 music tracks on her KaZaa account, Jammie Thomas has filed a notice of remittitur with the US District Court for the District of Minnesota, asking the judge to slash the jury's damage award, contending that she should receive a retrial that assesses the damages based on the <I>actual</I> damages suffered by the labels resulting from her making the files available.
A Show like last week's <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2007">Rocky Mountain Audio Fest</A> presents me with conflicts. As a member of the press I should be spending my time covering the Show. However, I am also spending my time as a participant, in this case giving a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/100807rmaf/">series of presentations</A> in which I allowed Showgoers the opportunity to listen to the hi-rez masters of many of my <I>Stereophile</I> recordings and compare them with CD and MP3 versions.
<A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007">Home Entertainment 2007</A> was a blast for me, as it is every year. Not only did I get to perform with <I>two</I> jazz bands, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/907att">Attention Screen</A> and the John Atkinson Trio, but I enjoyed good to extraordinary sound in every room I visited. I've been attending hi-fi shows more than 20 years, so I'm rarely surprised, but HE2007 had two big surprises in store. First, the percentage of rooms sporting analog front-ends—vinyl <I>and</I> open-reel tape—was the highest I've seen at a show in over a decade. Second, there was a surprising number of <I>very</I> expensive loudspeakers. In fact, I counted more speakers costing over $50,000/pair than I did costing under $500/pair.
Visit www.stereophile.com and look at the <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?522">Vote Results for June 17, 2007</A>: You'll see that when we asked our readers to name the one audio product that's spent the greatest amount of time in their systems, the most common answer by far was the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/1103linn">Linn Sondek LP12</A> turntable (footnote 1). Little wonder that Scotland's most famous record player endures as an object of attention for various and sundry commercial <I>tweaks</I>.
Most people are familiar, at least in outline, with the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea." In the story, the Queen decides that it's time for her son to marry, and the Prince—apparently a very fussy young man—decides that he can marry only a true princess, as measured by her sensitivity to small discomforts. It's like being an audiophile, but with peas.
Is it my imagination, or has the low-power tube movement of the last 15 years gone hand in hand with a renewed interest in moving-coil step-up transformers? Trannies remain misunderstood or ignored by most of the audio press—requests for review samples continue to be met with genial shock, rather like tourism in the Budapest of the 1990s—but enthusiasm for the practice seems only to grow. That leaves me to wonder: Did the unquestioning use of <I>active</I> pre-preamps for so many years grow out of the same bad attitude that gave us all those awful-sounding high-power amps and low-sensitivity loudspeakers? You know the mindset: Parts are cheap. Gain is free. Do it because you <I>can...</I>
I think my favorite is #311.