LATEST ADDITIONS

My very first review of a preamplifier, for British magazine <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> in May 1984, was of the Audio Research SP-10. In my opening to that review, I wrote that, "more than any other component," a preamplifier "should approximate to the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/121503walker">Peter Walker</A>'s 'Straight Wire with Gain.'" By this I meant that a preamplifier should not be in the business of effecting dramatic changes, and in any case, dramatic changes are not the kind that prove to be of lasting value. However, I also wrote back then that what I became increasingly aware of while using the SP-10 "was the fact that 'neutrality' is a positive virtue rather than just an absence of aberration."

Out of habit now more than anything else, I keep my cell phone on the floor beneath my bed while I sleep at night. In the morning, when I wake, I still check my cell phone for any messages.

Back around Christmastime, when everyone around me seemed to be receiving iPods and gift certificates to the iTunes store, I thought I should give my loved ones <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/123107talk/">The MP3 Talk</a>. Now, John Atkinson, has prepared another version of <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html">The MP3 Talk</a>&#151live and in color with all sorts of cool graphs and stuff!

Donates $1 million to early-onset Alzheimer's research <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7291315.stm"</A&gt;. Tells Alzheimer's Research Trust conference, "Personally, I'd eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance."

<I>Blender</I> has just posted its nominations for <A HREF="http://www.blender.com/articles/default.aspx?key=18696">greatest record industry screw-ups</A>. I have a few quibbles, but as a whole, <I>Blender</I> tells a tale of monumental stupidity,from Decca passing on the Beatles because Dick Rowe was irritated that too many frantic teens were attempting to get into the Cavern Club to shutting down Napster without having a legitimate channel to replace it.

Even the most savvy <I>Stereophile</I> reader might wonder what a "network music player" is. Linn rightly considers a <I>music server</I> to be a combination of 1) stored digital files, 2) music-management software, and 3) a device that uses #2 to transfer #1 to your hi-fi. What Linn's Klimax DS <I>is</I> is a high-quality digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that receives digital data through an Ethernet connection rather than optical or electrical S/PDIF or AES/EBU inputs.

I'm writing these words on the flight home from the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, held January 7–10 in Las Vegas. I wasn't sure what to expect at this year's CES. Though the official stats show that the US economy has grown for the fourth straight year, audio retailers I spoke with before the Show feel that that economic growth has not resulted in any increase in consumers' disposable incomes. In fact, with the drying up of credit, retailers are concerned that 2008 may well be a step back from 2007 in overall sales, and that high-end audio—a niche category within a niche category—will be adversely affected by the relative impoverishment of the middle class.