LATEST ADDITIONS

When we last heard from NBC Universal's CEO Jeff Zucker, he'd refused to renew the network's yearly contract with Apple's iTunes Store, leading Apple <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/090307nbc/">to immediately pull NBC shows</A> from the store rather than have them yanked midseason. In addition, Apple managed to control the story so that NBC came off looking clueless and greedy. You'd think Zucker would have learned to keep his mouth shut from that media drubbing.

This last week has generated more mainstream coverage of the vinyl world than we've seen in, say, the last 20 years.

<I>The following was submitted as a letter to <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/66">J. Gordon Holt</A>, in response to his Editorial "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/882awsi">Digital Revenge</A>," in issue #53 (August 1982, Vol.5 No.6). We are publishing it as a guest editorial, because the writer is one of the few audio people whose judgement we respect who disagrees with us about digital's merits. The feeling, it would seem, is mutual.</I>&mdash;<B>Ed.</B>

Question: What is it that almost every audiophile takes for granted, yet has more effect on the sound of his system than does any single component in that system? Answer: His listening room.

It was eight years ago that I first met Aalt Jouk van den Hul. I was visiting Ortofon in Denmark, and, with a group of hi-fi journalists from all over Europe, was traveling by bus to visit the cartridge-production facility in the far south of that country. Bus journeys are not my ideal way of passing time; naturally I gravitated to the rear of the bus, where bottles of Tuborg were making their presence felt. One journalist, however&mdash;a pixieish fellow hailing from The Low Countries&mdash;resisted the blandishments of the opened bottles. Producing a sheath of black-and-white glossies from his briefcase, he announced that he had just developed the ultimate stylus profile!

<B>GRATEFUL DEAD: <I>Two from the Vault</I></B><BR>
Grateful Dead Records GDCD40162 (2 CDs only). Dan Healy, prod.; Jeffrey Norman, Don Pearson, engs. ADD. TT: 109:12<BR>
<B>GRATEFUL DEAD: <I>Infrared Roses</I></B><BR>
Grateful Dead Records GDCD40142 (CD only). Bob Bralove, prod.; Jeffrey Norman, John Cutler, Dan Healy, Bob Bralove, engs. ADD. TT: 58:30

Hat tip to Mark Fleischmann.