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<B>MEDESKI MARTIN & WOOD: <I>Friday Afternoon in the Universe</I></B><BR> John Medeski, organs, piano, wurlitzer, clavinet; Billy Martin, drums, percussion; Chris Wood, acoustic bass, harmonica, wood flute<BR> Gramavision GCD 79503 (CD only). MMW, David Baker, Jim Payne, prods.; David Baker, eng.; Dr. Toby Mountain, mastering. DDD? TT: 57:06

Sonus Faber provides a fascinating and challenging insight into the art of high-quality sound reproduction. This Italian company makes two costly two-way stand-mounted speakers that couldn't be more different from each other.

One of the great imponderables in hi-fi is how much the vibrations of a dynamic loudspeaker's cabinet walls contribute to its overall sound quality. Studies by William Stevens in the mid-1970s showed that, with some speakers, the acoustic output of the enclosure could be almost as much as that from the drive-units. Since then, responsible speaker designers have worked hard either to damp cabinet vibrations or to shift them to higher frequencies where their effect on the music will be less deleterious.

"I never touch the stuff," I say, totally disassociating myself from my husband's addiction. "Well," I admit, when pushed, "I <I>do</I> use it sometimes---but I never do the hard stuff."

Americans might be forgiven if they haven't heard of Epos. A small, British specialist loudspeaker manufacturer, it was founded in 1983 by its designer, Robin Marshall—an ex-BBC engineer and a onetime consultant to Monitor Audio, according to Roy Hall of Epos's US importer, Music Hall. Their first model, the ES 20, didn't make it to the US, and was apparently a bit too pricey in the UK to make much of a splash there (about £700, $1300 at the current rate of exchange—a mint in a country with the patent on sub-$500/pair (UK prices!) two-ways). In 1986 or thereabouts, the new, smaller ES 14 was introduced, using updated versions of the same drivers in a smaller, ported cabinet. Music Hall only recently began importing the Epos into the US.

Few people in the audio business would deny that John Curl is an audio design genius&mdash;arguably the greatest one of our generation. He designed and built the electronics for Mobile Fidelity's SuperMaster and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//interviews/478/">David Wilson</A>'s (of Wilson Audio) UltraMaster tape recorders, two of the three best analog recorders in the world. (The other is Keith Johnson's home-brew unit.) He designed the JC-1 head amp and JC-2 preamplifier sold under the Mark Levinson name some years ago. He designed head amps for SOTA, Michaelson & Austin (TVA), and has done consulting work for more high-end companies than you can shake a stick at.

If there is indeed a renaissance of tubes in high-end audio&mdash;and it is clear there is&mdash;much of the blame lies with Audio Research Corporation.