LATEST ADDITIONS

Not that long ago, digital audio was considered perfect if all the bits could be stored and retrieved without data errors. If the data coming off the disc were the same as what went on the disc, how could there be a sound-quality difference with the same digital/analog converter? This "bits is bits" mentality scoffs at sonic differences between CD transports, digital interfaces, and CD tweaks. Because none of these products or devices affects the pattern of ones and zeros recovered from the disc, any differences must be purely in the listener's imagination. After all, they argued, a copy of a computer program runs just as well as the original.

So you've spent thousands (hours, that is...in terms of dollars, don't ask!) trying to improve the sound of your stereo, and you're <I>still</I> dissatisfied. Here's a list of sure-fire steps which, if followed precisely, will without a doubt have you happy as a lark for days afterward. (What? You expected to be happy with these improvements for <I>months</I> or even <I>years</I>? Get with it! This is high-end audio we're talking about. When was the last time you were satisfied more than a few <I>hours</I> with your costly upgrades?!)

Subjective audio is the evaluation of reproduced sound quality by ear. It is based on the novel idea that, since audio equipment is made to be listened to, what it sounds like is more important than how it measures. This was a natural outgrowth of the 1950s high-fidelity "revolution," which spawned the notion that a component, and an audio system as a whole, should reproduce what is fed into it, without adding anything to it or subtracting anything from it.

At a CES press breakfast in Las Vegas last January, a member of the "all amplifiers (and digital sources!) sound the same" school of audio journalism made an interesting assertion. He argued that if our society were studied by extraterrestrials, they would find an unhealthy obsession with the <I>re-creation</I> of experience at the expense of experience itself. This speculation was a vehicle to support his position that buying good hi-fi is a waste of money; for the same financial outlay, one can attend hundreds, even thousands of live performances. Moreover, this anti-high-end writer suggested that ETs would consider our quest for better music reproduction a bizarre folly when the real thing is so readily available (footnote 1).

There's been a shift in the quality of in-house complaint from the <I>Stereophile</I> staff since we started the annual "Records to Die For" feature two years ago. At first, most of our contributing editors---especially the hardcore hardware cadre---weren't sure they could name <I>a single disc</I> that fit the seemingly simple criteria of world-class performance in world-class stereo sound. As this fulfilled all my nightmares of techno-weenies listening to equipment first and music second, if at all, I was <I>not</I> sympathetic. "So sue me," I growled in my best cigar-in-mouth, shoes-on-desk, tough-guy editor snarl. "Get real, runts. Wake up an' smell da vinyl. Da readers is countin' on youse. Geddoudamyface and just do it."

I recently scoured my shelves and came up with the following list of must-read books for stereophiles, all of which are in print and should be available from specialist bookshops or from the suppliers mentioned in the text. Books marked with an asterisk (*), though too technical for the general reader, will be found rewarding by those who have a good grasp of mathematics and who want to delve deep. Reading the books in the first "general" section of the list will enable readers to understand just about everything that appears in <I>Stereophile</I>, but all the books listed contain between their covers untold treasures.