The $3000 moving-coil (MC) PhD, available from Chad Kassem's Acoustic Sounds operation, is a monumental achievement that, for me, sets new standards for the cleanness and transparency possible in a phono preamp—and I've had a lot of experience with phono preamps.
Let us pause for a moment to reflect on the passing of one of hi-fi’s most venerable components. For 30 years, Rega’s Planar 2—recently, simply known as the P2—has provided countless hi-fi enthusiasts with their first taste of the potential that the vinyl disc has to offer. Now Rega has decided to stop making it.
When audiophiles speak of the pioneers who laid the foundation for their hobby, certain names are spoken with particular reverence: Kellogg, Rice, Klipsch, Voigt, Walker, and Janszen all indisputably make the all-star team. Arthur A. Janszen, like John Hilliard at Altec Lansing, worked on US Navy projects during WWII, but after the war focused on developing an electrostatic speaker for cockpit use in Naval aircraft. The resulting Office of Naval Research Technical Memorandum was groundbreaking in its description of construction techniques and sonic performance, but the Navy declined to develop the project further and, in fact, phased out the developmental aspect of the department.
"Well it has finally happened," esteemed classical recording engineer <A HREF="http://www.auracle.com/greenroom/">Tony Faulkner</A> wrote me in a recent email. "I have engineered my first live webcast and MP3 download-only release."
Reader David L. Wyatt, Jr. likes to haunt the used and cutout bins and wants to know what your best find has been to date.
Usually, a <I>Stereophile</I> "Follow-Up" follows up (duh!) a full review of the component in question. This review, however, is intended to flesh out a cryptic comment made by Wes Phillips in April's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/405awsi">As We See It</A>": "When Apple introduced its AirPort Express wireless multimedia link," Wes wrote, "it even included a digital port so that an audiophile—such as <I>Stereophile</I>'s editor—could network his system, using the AE to feed his <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/159">Mark Levinson No.30.6</A> outboard D/A converter. 'Sounds okay,' deadpans JA."
I feel privileged to have followed the remarkable evolution of digital processors over the past four-and-a-half years. Since my first digital review—a survey of three modified CD players back in August 1989—I've been fascinated by the developments that have inexorably improved the quality of digitally reproduced music.
<I>A couple of months back (<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/393awsi">March 1993, p.7</A>), I wrote that as far as I was concerned, video was television dressed up in fancy dress, thus there was no place for coverage of the medium in </I>Stereophile<I>. As the magazine's founder, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/66">J. Gordon Holt</A>, has been a committed videophile for many years, I sat back and awaited a reaction from him. One was not long coming. I am running his response as this month's "As We See It" feature.—<B>John Atkinson</B></I>
<I>"When it comes to video, most audiophiles are insufferable snobs."</I>—J. Gordon Holt, 1984
"Some say it dates back to 1927, when <I>Gramophone</I> magazine's editor thundered that electrical reproduction was a step <I>backward</I> in sound quality," said the promotional copy for Home Entertainment 2005's opening-day event, "The Great Debate: Subjectivism on Trial." It continued: "But whenever it started, the Great Debate between 'subjectivists,' who hear differences among audio components, and 'objectivists,' who tend to ascribe such differences to the listeners' overheated imaginations, rages just as strongly in the 21st century as it did in the 20th." On April 29 at the Manhattan Hilton, <I>Stereophile</I> editor John Atkinson and one of the Internet's most vocal audio skeptics, Arnold B. Krueger, debated <I>mano a mano</I> where the line should be drawn between honest reporting and audio delusion.