LATEST ADDITIONS

Reader Mike Agee wonders why displays on disc players don't default to "time remaining" or why more power amps don't come with attenuators. What features do you think are missing from high-end audio components?

Is anyone in this economy shopping for a four-box, rack-swallowing, two-channel SACD/CD player contending for the state of the art and costing $79,996? dCS is betting that its Scarlatti will attract a small crowd of those wealthy music enthusiasts who, in <I>any</I> economy, reliably pony up for the best. For the rest of us, the Scarlatti will be a spectator sport.

There's an old Russian folktale about a farmer who goes to a fair. He buys a bread roll from a vendor. He eats it, but he's still hungry. So he buys and eats another roll, and then another. Still hungry. Next, he buys a donut from a different vendor. At last, he's no longer hungry. The farmer then says to himself, "I wasted the money I spent on the rolls&#151;I should have just bought the donut first!"

On August 17, 1959—50 years ago exactly—Columbia Records released Miles Davis’ <I>Kind of Blue</I>, which became not only the best-selling jazz album of all time but also one of the <I>best</I> jazz albums, period, the spearhead of the “modal” revolution.

Rich from Chicago wants to know about our readers' generosity: What's the best system that you've ever <I>given</I> away or sold dirt-cheap to a friend?

With the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/ta_music_player_media_streamer"… Player</A>, T+A also sent along the Power Plant integrated amplifier ($2700). The Power Plant (PP) looks almost identical to the MP, and the two comprise a handsome, fully functional audio system in a single modest stack. To make this even easier, you connect the two at their rear panels with a supplied RJ-12 cable (T+A calls this the E Link), which coordinates their functions and allows the MP and PP to be operated with a single remote control.

One of my favorite Charles Rodrigues cartoons, originally published in <I>Stereo Review</I> and reprinted in the book <I>Total Harmonic Distortion</I> (Perfectbound Press, 1988), shows a customer in the soundroom of an audio dealer, auditioning a pair of speakers. This is no ordinary soundroom: the floor, walls, and ceiling are completely covered with irregularly shaped boxes, apparently an extreme form of acoustical treatment. The salesman is saying, "Of course, you realize that it won't sound exactly the same in your living room, sir..."