LATEST ADDITIONS

Can the power cord make or break a particular component? Some say it does and others say it doesn't. Have you upgraded the power cords on any of your equipment?

<I><B>Editor's Note: </B>In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then </I>de rigeur<I> for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.</I>

Like the Reference Studio/60, which was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1204paradigm">enthusiasti… reviewed</A> in the December 2004 issue by Kalman Rubinson, Paradigm's floorstanding Reference Studio/100 is now available in a v.3 version. The '100 is the flagship model in the Canadian manufacturer's Reference line. Its earlier incarnations, the original Studio/100 and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/252/">Studio/100 v.2</A>, were reviewed by Tom Norton and Robert Deutsch in the August 1997 and June 2000 issues of <I>Stereophile</I>, respectively, and both writers were well impressed at how much sound quality could be wrought from this competitively priced speaker design. Bob Deutsch, in particular, referred to the v.2 as a "a serious high-end contender, and a formidable one for just about any speaker in its price range and even well above."

It's a common audiophile failing to remember the past as being much better than it actually was. (Though, of course, some things <I>were</I> better.) I remember the first time I heard a pair of Acoustic Research LST loudspeakers, in 1974 or thereabouts. Compared with the Wharfedales I used in my own system and the various Goodmans, Celestions, and home-brews I heard at friends' homes, the sound of classical orchestral recordings on the ARs was about as close to the real thing as I could imagine. And the AR ads reinforced my experience, telling me that musicians such as Herbert von Karajan also used LSTs. I never heard those speakers again, but occasionally I wonder how they would hold up today (footnote 1).

Media conglomerates have long hedged their bets by consulting demographics experts and marketing gurus. Now, music executives have real science to bolster their sometimes unreliable instincts about what will succeed and what will fail. It's an audio analysis program called Hit Song Science (HSS).

The record industry's favorite nonconformist, DualDisc, is getting a modest boost in February and March. Despite hand-wringing and compatibility warnings from scores of manufacturers, all of the major record labels say they plan to release some of the two-faced discs in coming weeks.

In the February issue, <I>Stereophile</I> scribes pen their <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/records2die4/">Records 2 Die 4</A>. Now it's your turn: give us the one or two discs that topped your list in 2004.