LATEST ADDITIONS

For a time, I had my gear sitting on top of my new <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_weight_of_my_loneliness/"… Expedit bookcase</a>. An identical bookcase sat along the front wall and held a ton of books, but proved visually distracting when listening to music; it also weakened my system's soundstaging abilities.

It's difficult to believe that the former top model of Vandersteen Audio's line of loudspeakers, the Model 5, has been in production in one form or another since 1997. Time passes quickly when you're having fun. Like all Vandersteen speakers, the 5 was and remains a good value <I>and</I> performance proposition. For all the 5's high technology and excellent performance both measured and audible, its price now starts at under $20,000/pair (up from about $10,000/pair when the 5 was introduced in 1997), including a built-in, proprietary powered subwoofer in each cabinet, and a sophisticated equalization system for room compensation.

The April 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. For the cover, we selected the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/monitor_audio_platinum_200/">Monitor Audio Platinum PL200</a> loudspeaker. Like Bob Deutsch, I was impressed by this speaker when I heard it at the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/">2009 Salon Son & Image</a>, so I was especially pleased by John Atkinson’s decision to highlight it. Our cover photographer, Eric Swanson, and designer, Natalie Baca, were also pleased by the speaker’s great looks: The fine-furniture finish of its Santos Rosewood cabinet, the silvery ceramic-coated aluminum magnesium drive units, the handsome Strathspey leather front baffle, and, <i>ooh</i>, that sexy rear port (see the extreme close-up on page 109!) all worked to win over our design team.

I assume you’ve been in a situation like this before, too.

In the we-all-make-mistakes department:

A decade ago, many predicted that amplifiers with switching or class-D output stages would come to dominate high-end audio. In a post–Peak Oil world in which the price of energy would always continue to rise, a class-D amplifier's very high efficiency in converting AC from the wall outlet into speaker-driving power would be a killer benefit. Although a conventional push-pull class-B amplifier has a theoretical efficiency of 78.5%, which would seem usefully high, this efficiency is obtained only at the onset of clipping; the need for the output devices to carry a standing bias current reduces that efficiency considerably, typically to around 50%. Class-A amplifiers are even less efficient, with a maximum of 25%; ie, three times as much power is dissipated by the amplifier as waste heat as is used to drive the loudspeaker (see "Sam's Space" in this issue).

<B>Neil Young: <I>Official Release Series, Discs 1&#150;4</I></B><BR>
Reprise 519173-1(4 LPs, Limited Edition Vinyl Boxed Set). 2009. Neil Young, David Briggs, Elliot Mazer, Jack Nitzsche, Henry Lewy, prods.; John Nowland, reissue eng. AAA.