<B>J.S. BACH: <I>The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I</I></B><BR>
Till Fellner, piano<BR>
ECM 1853/54 (2 CDs). 2004. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Markus Heiland, eng. DDD. TT: 116:58<BR>
Performance <B>*****</B><BR>
Sonics <B>*****</B>
Thirty-one flavors may work for an ice-cream chain, but a speaker manufacturer who sets out to please every sonic palate ends up with a serious identity crisis, pleasing no-one. From its inception in 1985, Audio Physic, based in Brilon, Germany, has been an event-oriented speaker company. Founder and original chief designer Joachim Gerhard focused much of his attention on providing listeners with the sensation of "live" by emphasizing coherent three-dimensional imaging and soundstaging—though not to the exclusion of timbral accuracy. Except for the Medea, based on a Manger driver (a fascinating design nonetheless), every Audio Physic speaker I've heard has fulfilled the company's mission statement.
I love dealing with the colorful characters of high-end audio. One such individual is Victor (<I>Veekh-tor</I>) Goldstein, who has distributed high-quality European audio gear from his New York City headquarters, Fanfare International, for 23 years. A nuclear engineer by training, Goldstein transitioned into audio when the Three Mile Island incident reduced the demand for his services. (I guess he felt his skills were transferable to single-ended triode amplifiers.) Most of all, Goldstein is a passionate lover of music with a vinyl collection that numbers well into five figures, and a fixture at many of the significant classical performances at New York's major concert halls.
Symphony orchestras once had definable national characters. When high-end audio came along, those characters became the national sounds of the gear. While most audio manufacturers, like most symphony orchestras, have tended in recent decades to homogenize into an "international" sound, most French audio gear has remained distinct.
Circuit City turnaround: After a long slump, the Richmond, VA–based retail chain is finally on an upswing. The company reported a 7% increase in sales for the first fiscal quarter, ended May 31—a total of $2.1 billion. Same-store sales rose 6.4%. The total included $21.5 million in revenue from InterTan, a group of Canadian stores acquired by Circuit City on May 12. Circuit City's strongest product categories were flat-panel TVs, digital cameras, computer gear, and portable audio players.
As a result of the RIAA's aggressive attempts at legislation and lawsuits, it is widely understood that government control is an integral component of the music industry's plans to limit the ways in which copyrighted music can be used. But how far will the industry go to control the technology used to play back your favorite tune?
From the June 1999 issue, Jonathan Scull surveys the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/699pass">Pass Labs X1000 monoblock power amplifier</A>. JS notes, "Pass Laboratories' X amplifier series represents the efforts of designer Nelson Pass to prove that simple linear amplifier topologies can be scaled to provide high-quality audio performance at <I>very</I> high power levels."
While Universal's heavily publicized attempt at CD price reduction didn't pan out as hoped last year, there is evidence to suggest that CD prices may be slowly moving downward.
The Home Entertainment 2004 East Show, held in New York City, May 20–23, at the New York Hilton & Towers, gave Show attendees a memorable weekend filled with live music, educational seminars, a special movie night, and a grand concert—all included with the price of admission to the Show.
If you don't have any high-resolution digital audio discs (SACD or DVD-A) in your collection, reader Gary Squibbs would like to know why not?