LATEST ADDITIONS

ArkivMusic.com has just signed a deal with Warner Classics to reissue, on demand, out-of-print recordings from Teldec, Erato, and Warner Classics. The site's first 300 offerings from the Warner USA catalog, available at the end of October, will join the more than 4000 other out-of-print titles from EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal Music Group, and two dozen independent classical music labels now available on demand from ArkivMusic on ArkivCD. An additional 1000 ArkivCD reissue titles should become available by the end of 2007.

Tweaks come and go. When a new one creates a buzz in audiophile circles, I generally prefer to wait and see if it's still around after the initial excitement has subsided. I'd heard about "audiophile" fuses some time ago, and although the likelihood of them making a significant difference didn't seem as farfetched as such tweaks as the "intelligent chip" or the "clever little clock," I didn't feel inclined to try them. I was persuaded otherwise by the confluence of two separate influences: a report by Michael Fremer, in the February 2007 <I>Stereophile</I>, that the HiFi-Tuning fuses produced a "subtle but noticeable" improvement in the sound of his Musical Fidelity kWP preamplifier; and an encounter at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show with Robert Stein of importer Ultra Systems (the HiFi-Tuning fuses are made in Germany), who said that they produced a <I>big</I> improvement and offered to send me some samples.

Bagheera is convinced that her ancestors on the savannah hunted the colossal wooly queen-sized bed.

Make mine music: "Music training, with its pervasive effects on the nervous system's ability to process sight and sound, may be more important for enhancing verbal communication skills than learning phonics."

Regarding <a href="http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/10/01/radiohead/">that Radiohead thing</a> that everyone's talking about, which strikes me as being a whole lot like <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/news/1205magnatune/index.html">that Magnatune thing</a> we covered a couple of years back, I refer all dear readers to my brother, <a href="http://themultipurposesolution.blogspot.com/2007/10/they-should-just-ge… Teacher</a>.

Steely Dan’s <I>Aja</I> isn’t exactly jazz, but given (a) the presence of such jazz luminaries as Wayne Shorter and Victor Feldman, (b) the jazz sensibility of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, (c) my blogger’s prerogative to step outside genres once in a while, and (d) the fact that my host, <I>Stereophile</I>, is, after all, an audiophile magazine, I feel entitled to mention—and wholeheartedly recommend—Cisco Music's LP
<A HREF= http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_detail.cfm?Title_ID=39750 >
reissue</A>.