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John Atkinson sent me a link to <I>Time</I>'s Rick Rubin interview. I can see why JA liked it&mdash;Rubin's production philosophy reminds me a lot of the way JA edits and records.

Here's something you probably never even knew existed: music librarian humor.

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran ponders self-awareness.

Faithfully reproducing the sound of real, live musicians in our listening rooms is the audiophile's Holy Grail. Have you ever heard a system do this? If so, what was it?

On Saturday, February 10, collaborative improvisation band Attention Screen gave its debut at Manhattan's Merkin Hall at Kaufmann Center to a packed house. The event was recorded by John Atkinson for release in May as a <I>Stereophile</I> CD, possibly followed by a limited-edition DVD-A.

Naim's new "statement" CD player, the CD555 ($20,300 by itself, $28,150 with PS555 power supply), breaks no new technological ground. Rather, in typical Naim fashion, it attempts to optimize 16-bit/44.1kHz CD performance by paying fanatical attention to the devilish details. It doesn't play the DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, or SACD formats, nor does it have a digital output&mdash;and it doesn't create an illusion of higher resolution by upsampling the data.

Finding myself in the Northwest on business, I reckoned I'd grab some Seattle dim sum with my nephew before heading my rental car south on I-5 to visit old friends in Oregon. "You live here," I said to Sean. "What are the good radio stations?"