LATEST ADDITIONS

<B>PATTI SMITH: <I>Gone Again</I></B><BR> Arista 07822-18747-2 (CD only). Malcolm Burn, prod., eng.; Lenny Kaye, prod.; Brian Sperber, eng.; Greg Calbi, mastering. TT: 55:58</B>

Back in 1968, <I>nothing</I> sounded better to me than "Penny Lane"&mdash;one of my all-time favorite songs&mdash;blasting out over my Dad's home-built Eico gear (when no one else was around, of course). For some reason, the various sounds packed into that song grabbed my attention as much as that old integrated amp whose steel case got as hot as the tubes inside&mdash;ouch! When the Beatles broke up, I played <I>Magical Mystery Tour</I> over and over for days before I felt I'd paid them sufficient homage. Like everyone else, I heard a lot of the Beatles through the '70s and '80s. (And now, of course, it may as well be the '60s again: if you can stomach another "Magic Carpet Ride" every hour (or so it seems), just tune in your local "classic rock" station and you'll hear lots of "Penny Lane," too.)

Whenever I think of cone speaker systems, I think of three brand names: Snell, Thiel, and Vandersteen. There are many good loudspeakers and many good designers and manufacturers, but it is these three who, in my opinion, consistently produce the best cone loudspeaker systems. All three companies produce full-range systems, transparent systems, and systems which mate well with a wide range of equipment. Their systems can be owned and enjoyed for years. Long after some fad or special feature has given a competing designer brief notoriety, these are the products you turn back to for music.

"Why no review of the Ayre V-3?" queried Stephen Slaughter in July's "Letters" column, echoing several urgent posts to my e-mail address. Word of mouth on this remarkable 100Wpc amplifier was reaching fever pitch. Show reports over the last several years had sounded a consistent note—rooms that demoed with V-3s kept getting mentioned in "Best of Show" overviews. Naturally, this also meant that the pendulum had started its backward swing. "It's not really as good as people are saying," one WCES attendee confided in me. "That's why they won't give it to critics."

<B>CYRUS CHESTNUT: <I>Earth Stories</I></B><BR> Cyrus Chestnut, piano; Steve Kirby, bass; Alvester Garnett, drums (on "Cooldaddy's Perspective," add: Eddie Allen, trumpet; Steven Carrington, tenor sax; Antonio Hart, alto sax)<BR> Atlantic Jazz 82876-2 (CD only). Yves Beauvais, Cyrus Chestnut, prods.; Joe Ferla, eng. AAD. TT: 48:54

Let's say you play a CD on a poor-quality CD transport and store the digital audio data in a massive computer memory. You then repeat the process, but this time play the CD into the memory from the finest CD transport extant (say, the Mark Levinson No.31). A week later you feed the two sets of data from the massive memory into a digital processor and listen to the music. Would the CD transports' sonic signatures be removed from the signal? Could you hear a difference between the transports a week later?

<B>EDUARDO PANIAGUA GROUP: <I>Danzas Medievales Espa&#241;olas</I></B><BR> Eudardo Paniagua, flautas de bisel, nay, fujara, psalterio, tromba marina, darbuga, tar, c&#237;mbalos, caraqueb, cascabeles; Cesar Carazo, canto, viola de brazo; Wafir Sheik, la&#250;d &#225;rabe, darbuga, pandero, sonajero; Jaime Mu&#241;oz, axabeba, kaval, chalumeau, dulcimer, sonajas; Enrique Almendros, flautas de tres agujeros, gaitas, gaita charra y tamboril, tar, c&#237;mbaols, campanas; Luis Delgado, zanfona, la&#250;d, dutar, vihuela de p&#233;&#241;ola, santur, fujara, c&#225;ntara, darbuga, zarb, bendir, pandera, tambor, tar<BR> M&bull;A M034A (CD only). Todd Garfinkle, prod., eng. DDD. TT: 72:05