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Components listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile and have been found to be among the best available in each of four or five quality classes. Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class E, we highly recommend its purchase.

Each listing-in alphabetical order within classes-is followed by a brief description of the product's sonic characteristics and a code indicating the Stereophile Volume and Issue in which that product's report appeared. Thus the September 2013 issue is indicated as "Vol.36 No.9."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Such is the story of the Montreal Audio Show aka Salon Son et Image (SSI), which takes place this coming weekend, March 28–30. The Chester Group may be sponsoring the show for the first time, and longtime show organizer Michel Plante may have ceded the reins to his partner/wife, Sarah Tremblay, but both the location (the Hilton Bonaventure Hotel) and the show structure are pretty much the same. Tremblay expects about 80 exhibitors—the same as last year—holding forth in 80–100 rooms.

Thumbing their collective nose at pundits who predict the imminent demise of physical media, Universal Music Group has begun reissuing select back catalog and new releases in Pure Audio (audio only) Blu-Ray 24/96 and/or 24/96 download formats. The first of the classical titles appeared in February, with more rolling out all the time. To get the skinny on UMG's plans for Blu-ray and hi-res, I conducted two separate interviews with folks in the UK. The first, with Barry Holden, the extremely committed and highly articulate VP of Classical Catalogue at Universal Music, appears below.

Respighi: Church Windows
The Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Keith Clark conducting.
Reference Recordings RR-15 (LP). Tam Henderson, prod.; Keith Johnson, eng. AAA

Some years ago, Harry Pearson, editor and publisher of That Other Magazine, announced his intention to help finance production of a no-holds-barred symphonic recording. The only question was, who would produce it?

Reference Recordings' Tam Henderson assures me he did not have HP's grant in mind when he conspired with the Pacific Symphony's conductor to record "something" in the Crystal Cathedral, a huge barn of a place in Santa Ana, CA. When that hall, graced by a large, romantic-sounding pipe organ and superb acoustics, proved to be unavailable because of some legal wrangle, the idea of recording something big and romantic for orchestra and pipe organ refused to go away.

When people talk about "the Blue Note sound," they're talking about the sound of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers—or, more to the point, the sound of that band as captured by Rudy Van Gelder for Blue Note Records: the two- (later three-) horn harmonies arrayed across the stage, the drum kit's airy sizzling cymbals, the up-close intensity of the mix (Van Gelder pushed the levels beyond the point where most engineers feared to roam).

Two new releases by Music Matters Jazz—the audiophile company that specializes in reissuing Blue Note LPs, each title mastered at 45rpm, spread out on two slabs of 180-gram vinyl, and packaged in separate slots of a beautifully reproduced gatefold cover and priced at $49.95—tell you what you need to know.

The April 2014 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. Inside, you’ll find 35 pages of “Recommended Components,” our handy guide to today’s best audio products, covering categories including: Turntables, Tonearms, Phono Cartridges, Phono Preamplifiers, Media Players, Digital Processors, Loudspeakers, Amplifiers, Preamplifiers, Integrated Amplifiers, and Headphones.

Our cover model is the extraordinary Vivid Audio Giya G3 loudspeaker. Is there room in John Atkinson’s heart for another loudspeaker? My guess is yes, but where exactly does the Giya G3 rank among the countless other contenders that have spent time in JA’s listening room? Other products reviewed in this month’s issue include:

By 2035, the way we produce and consume media will be entirely different from how we experience it now. Today there is still a "fourth wall" between us and the media we consume: within three decades, that line between reality and its recreation will all but disappear. Our media experiences will become fully immersive—from spherical audio and video that tracks with our body's movements, to gestural computing, to physical-feedback devices, and more. Using tomorrow's technology, our children and grandchildren may find it difficult to distinguish the real thing from reproduced.