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Components listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile and have been found to be among the best available in each of four or five quality classes. Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class E, we highly recommend its purchase.

Each listing-in alphabetical order within classes-is followed by a brief description of the product's sonic characteristics and a code indicating the Stereophile Volume and Issue in which that product's report appeared. Thus the May 2018 issue is indicated as "Vol.41 No.5."

The dichotomy between what is measured and what is heard has resurfaced in recent months. Jon Iverson discussed it in his "As We See It" in our December 2018 issue, and I followed up on the subject in my January 2019 "As We See It." These further thoughts were triggered by an e-mail exchange I had last December with Stereophile's longtime copyeditor, Richard Lehnert.

David Crosby: Here If You Listen
BMG 538431461 (LP), 538429532 (CD), none (FLAC 24/48). 2018. David Crosby, Michael League, prods.; Fab Dupont, prod., eng., mix; Josh Welshman, eng.; Greg Calbi, mastering. ADD/DDD. TT: 45:08
Performance ****
Sonics *****

In 1967, the year the Byrds would fire him, David Crosby sits in a room—a small space, from the sound of it—with a cheap microphone and a recorder of dubious merit. He's improvising some jazzy, open-tuned acoustic guitar strumming, adding nonlexical vocables on top. He then files away the resulting tape—clearly ahead of its time and of no use to his bandmates—for 50 years.

Given its engrossing, frequently radiant score, unflinching look at its timely subject matter, and superb cast of singing actors, Pentatone's live hi-rez recording of the premiere of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, fully deserves the Grammy recently bestowed upon it by the Recording Academy.

Publisher's note: The following article, from the early days of Compact Disc, is presented with no claim for absoluteness. (In fact, just as we go to press in the spring of 1986, we received a manuscript from Philip Greenspun, Product Review Editor of Computer Music Journal (Cambridge, MA), who had precisely the opposite result when comparing CD to analog versions of the same recording, though it was unclear that his test procedures were as thorough as in the tests by these authors.) The tests described are neither single- nor double-blind, and the author's decision to forego conversation while listening to the same products does not by any means guarantee lack of mutual influence—especially because their musical tastes are so well known to each other. Moreover, repeating the test with different phono equipment, a different CD player, and a different replica of the master tape would likely yield somewhat different results.

Nevertheless, I think the basic conclusion is sound: good CD reproduction is remarkably close to a fairly good version of master tape sound; there's a good chance that it's more accurate than what you'll get from the average cartridge, tonearm, and turntable.

Friday March 8 at 6pm, Audio Element (117 E. Union St, Pasadena, CA 91103) is presenting the next in their 2019 Monthly Music Series—Ae LIVE! Friday and Saturday, March 8, 4–7pm, and March 9, 11am–4pm, Command Performance AV (115 Park Avenue, Suite 2, Falls Church, VA 22046) will host two Luxman events with special guest Jeff Sigmund, president of Luxman America. Friday March 8 and Saturday March 9, Musical Artisans (8335 N. Keeler Avenue, Skokie, IL 60076) will host their annual Winter Open House Event on to celebrate the return of CH Precision and introduction of Rockport Technologies to Chicago.

It used to be on my commute that I'd see my fellow subway riders listening to music on their iPods with headphones from Beats, Bose, Sennheiser, Sony—and even, occasionally, from Grado. These days, however, iPhones and Android smartphones are ubiquitous, and while I still sometimes see a pair of Beats, many travelers now wear Bluetooth-connected Apple AirPods. I haven't bought a pair of AirPods, so I don't know how they sound, but at $159, I suspect they don't compete with "legitimate" headphones. Even so, I wondered if convenience trumps sound quality when it comes to listening on the move.