LATEST ADDITIONS

High-tech, compact, and lightweight, Chord's entry-level SPM 650 power amplifier ($4995) promises robust power output, low distortion and noise, flat and ultra-wideband frequency response, and bulletproof reliability—all in what seems an impossibly small package measuring 16.4" wide by 3.4" high by 13.8" deep and weighing only 22 lbs.

Over the years, I have become increasingly impressed by the quality of the audio engineering emanating from Simaudio, which next year celebrates its 30th anniversary. In a world where the US facilities of some well-known audio brands have been reduced to a design office coupled to a warehouse for storing product manufactured overseas, this Montreal-based manufacturer, in order to keep full control over quality and hence reliability, does as much manufacturing as possible in-house, including metalwork, some printed circuit-board stuffing, and assembly. (See my photo essay starting <A HREF="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/856">here</A…;.)

During a century of development of the phonograph, dozens of different things have been considered crucial to its performance: lack of bearing noise, lack of motor noise, freedom from runout error in the platter, high moment of inertia in same, immunity to all manner of unwanted vibration, and so forth. But now I wonder if the most important factor of all hasn't been overlooked, or at least misunderestimated, throughout much of that time: Could it be that motor <I>torque</I> is more critical than any of us imagined?

I'd been curious about Phiaton's headphones ever since Wes Phillips's positive review of the radical-looking, leather-clad <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/phiaton_moderna_ms_400_headphones… MS 400</a> appeared in our pages earlier this year, so when I learned that a couple of Phiaton's executives would be in New York City to introduce their new noise-cancelling 'phones, I was eager to check them out.

Clad in red leather and light as a feather, the frigging luscious <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/phiaton_moderna_ms_400_headphones… Moderna MS 400</a> headphones have a way of caressing your silly skull.

The Phiaton PS 200 sound-isolating earphones cost $249 and are designed to resemble jet engines! John Atkinson is working on a review.

Your sweet shadow still hangs on my cold walls, rests on my dusty shelves, smiles at me from old photos. She and I danced all night long to Marvin Gaye's <i>Let's Get It On.</i>