LATEST ADDITIONS

As further evidence that the American empire is on the decline, I submit the 8:00 set Friday night at the Blue Note on West 3rd Street in New York City, where three front-and-center tables of Europeans—twenty young to middle-aged, professional-looking men and women, who all seemed to be part of the same tour group—made more noise at a jazz club than I think I’ve ever witnessed. Shushing and shaming, from me and others in the audience, had but short-term impact; they’d quiet down for a few minutes and listen to the trio on the bandstand (more about them, in a moment), but then got back to the main business of yakking, chuckling, and generally treating the whole proceedings as the soundtrack to their merry Manhattan vacation and us poor jazz fans as mere props in the spectacle.

Among the most hallowed of my ten or so (the number varies) personal commandments of high-end audio is the following (to be uttered in sepulchral tones with deep humility):

I only found out <I>after</I> beginning my auditioning of Mirage's M-1si loudspeakers that the film <I>2001, A Space Odyssey</I> was, at practically the same instant, undergoing a brief theatrical revival in major cities around the US. I might have known. Perhaps it was the persistent Strauss melodies that rattled around in my head as I set them up. Perhaps it was the <I>two</I> 5'-tall monoliths that subsequently stared at me as I sat in my listening chair. For whatever reason, the M-1sis were an imposing sight, and the association with out-of-this-world events was not a difficult one to make.

Last week, we passed along some observations from Benchmark Media Systems' John Siau about iTunes forcing an unnecessary <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/120307samplerateconversion/">sample-rate conversion</A> in its 7.5 incarnation. We received a lot of mail on the subject during the week, including some helpful suggestions from Wavelength Audio's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/196rankin">Gordon Rankin</A>, who has much experience designing <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/905listen">USB audio devices</A>.

The <A HREF="http://www.stockhausen.org/">Stockhausen Foundation</A> announced December 7 that Karlheinz Stockhausen died on December 5. No cause of death was given.

The acoustic environment for music reproduction is easily the most overlooked source of sonic degradation. Many fine playback systems are compromised by room-induced anomalies that severely color the reproduced sound. When we live in a world of directional wire, high-end AC power cords, and $4000 CD transports, paying attention to the listening room's contribution to the musical experience takes on greater urgency.

<I>Stereophile</I>'s seventh CD of Minnesotan male choir Cantus, called with delightful originality <I>Cantus</I> (CTS1207) and recorded at 88.2kHz with 24-bit resolution, is now available from our <A HREF="http://ssl.blueearth.net/primedia/home.php">e-commerce page</A>, for $16.95 plus S&H.