Last week's question implied that high-end audio dealers are getting scarcer. Let's back up a bit and ask if that's really the case. Do you find that high-end audio dealers are getting more scarce in your area?
Not every interesting audio component gets a full review in <I>Stereophile</I>. Many more products are covered in Sam Tellig's, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening">Art Dudley's</A>, Michael Fremer's, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround">Kal Rubinson's</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/thefifthelement">John Marks'</A> regular columns than I have the space to publish measurements for. However, I do ask for samples of products that I feel deserve to be measured, particularly when our original coverage raised more questions than it answered.
I'm always eager to fulfill my prime <I>Stereophile</I> directive: "To go where no audiophile has gone before," as JA often quips. As it happens, I've long suffered an itch to audition OTL (output-transformer–less) amplifiers, wondering how eliminating the output transformer might affect the sound. Enter the Graaf GM 200, with nothing but wire between its power tubes and the crossover.
An acquaintance in the world of CD distribution recently gave me an astonishing statistic: that the average classical title sells fewer than 2000 copies worldwide in its first year of release; which in turn means that many titles sell only about 500 copies! Given that the cost of producing a classical orchestral album can include up to $100,000 in union-mandated musician fees, such minimal sales guarantee financial disaster.
Starting on Sunday, June 4, and continuing through Friday, June 10, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will broadcast all of <A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethovenexperience/pip/archive/">Beethoven… compositions</A> as "The Beethoven Experience."
Magnolia Audio, the upscale west-coast subsidiary of Best Buy, has signed an agreement with ReadyTo Play, a Palo Alto, CA–based digital music company, to offer in-store and point-of-sale promotion of RTP's CD ripping service to Magnolia's customers.
Ruth Laredo, a classical pianist whose style combined passionate ferocity with refined elegance, died May 25 of ovarian cancer, which she had battled for four years. Her last performance was May 6 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in one of her long-running performance/lecture sessions known as "Concertos with Commentary," a format that was so popular that she had begun to offer it in other venues around the world.
The Home Entertainment 2005 Show, held April 28–May 1 at the New York Hilton in Manhattan, was a highly charged four-day event filled with live music, education, and the latest in convergence technologies combining the worlds of high-end audio, music, home theater, computing, and gaming.
The X-DAC v3 replaces Musical Fidelity's Tri-Vista 21 DAC, which is no longer in production, although you might find some on dealer's shelves. The Tri-Vista 21 used two pairs of subminiature 5703 WB military tubes in the analog output stage. MF's Antony Michaelson called this Cold War tube, which is no longer made, a <I>trivistor</I>. The Tri-Vista 21 was last seen selling for $2395.