LATEST ADDITIONS

<I>How could he?</I>, they seem to say. In obituary after obituary, one reads how tenor Guiseppe di Stefano squandered his voice. Too much smoking, too much drinking, too much shouting at late-night parties, they declare. It's almost as though opera lovers feel betrayed, unable to forgive an artist who abused such glorious gifts so early in his career.

<i>From left to right: <a href="http://www.selfdivider.com/base/index.php">Selfdivider</a&gt;, AlexO, <a href="http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/jules/jules.html">Jules Coleman</a>, JackCrank, and <a href="http://www.jeffwong.com/">Jeff Wong</a>. Friday, February 29, 2008, at In Living Stereo.</i>

These speakers inadvertently managed to put me in a good mood even before I listened to them, because of a dumb little gaffe committed by Thiel's packing department. Each speaker came with an Owner's Information sheet, which is nice. Each sheet included Unpacking (and Repacking) Instructions, which is nicer. But each sheet came packed <I>inside</I> the carton, underneath the speaker, where it was not accessible until after the speaker was dumped out of the box, which is pretty silly!

A study published in the open source science journal <I>PLoS One</I> investigates the neural processes of jazz improvisation. Johns Hopkins neuroscientists put piano players in a fMRI scanner with a special keyboard and asked them to perform different five-finger exercises: play a scale, play a melody, and improvise on either the scale or the melody.

The Dalhquist DQ-10 loudspeaker has not as yet been formally submitted for review. (The designer tells us he is still working on the low end.) We auditioned a pair at the one local dealer we could find who had the DQ-10s on demo, and were immensely impressed. Obviously, Jon Dahlquist is on to something that other speaker designers have been overlooking, for, despite the multiplicity of driver speakers in the system, the DQ-10 sounds like one big speaker. There is no awareness of crossovers or separate drivers (except at the low end, about which more subsequently), and the overall sound has a degree of focus and coherence that is surpassed only by the Quad full-range electrostatic, which don't go as low at the bottom or as far out at the top.

I believe <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/232">Ken Kantor</A> said it first: a couple of years ago, in his September 1990 interview with Robert Harley (Vol.13 No.9), he remarked that "there's no reason why a two-way 6" loudspeaker can't be the equal of almost the best speaker out there from a certain frequency point upward, with the possible exception of dynamic range." When I read those words, they rang true. If you put to one side the need to reproduce low bass frequencies and can accept less-than-live playback levels, a small speaker can be as good as the best, and allow its owner to enjoy the benefits of its size&mdash;visual appeal, ease of placement in the room, and the often excellent imaging afforded by the use of a small front baffle.

The wind rushed hard and cold as I emerged from the Columbus Circle station.