LATEST ADDITIONS

A crime of passion? Depraved indifference to the importance of tuneage? Death by music? The simple fact is that most audiophiles got that way by having too many records. That's right&#151;very few got into this rewarding, non-contact sport because they were aroused by shiny brushed-steel boxes or supersexy speaker grilles. It's because they wanted to hear their piles of music&#151;their Mahler, Monk, or Rick James&#151;sound the best it could. (And, okay, yes: It <I>is</I> cool to show drooling friends your designer gear.)

"A reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. An unreasonable man expects the world to adapt to him. All progress, therefore, is made by unreasonable men."

<B>DVOR&#193;K: Symphony 9, "From the New World"<BR>
WAGNER: <I>Flying Dutchman Overture</I>, <I>Siegfried-Idyll</I></B><BR>
Jascha Horenstein, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra<BR>
Chesky Records CD 31 (CD only). Bob Katz, remastering eng.; David &amp; Norman Chesky, executive prods. (Original 1962 recordings: K. E. Wilkinson, eng.; Charles Gerhardt, prod.) ADD. TT: 67:30

Although it was Thomas Edison who set the tone for technological development in the 20th century, with his intellectual sweatshop in New Jersey, it is the lone inventor who has always had a special place in the heart of the American public. Since the days of Samuel Colt, Eli Whitney, and Nikola Tesla, fortune and fame have awaited the genius tinkerer who emerges from his back yard with a better mousetrap, cotton gin, etc., etc.

Perhaps impatience is my fatal flaw, the thing that keeps me forever this close to complete and undying happiness, but never quite there. I’m impatient. About certain things. I’m impatient, for instance, about acquiring a cassette deck. My cassette collection is growing large. My <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/cassettes_and_vinyl/">colorful cassettes</a> sit on my little footstool, waiting to be played, looking at me like what the hell. What the hell?

The <a href="http://www.teac.com/consumer_electronics/cassette_decks/w-600r/">TEAC W-600R</a> double auto-reverse cassette deck plays tapes(!), offers all sorts of unnecessary conveniences (like Fast-Forward and Reverse), costs $149, and is available NOW.

The <a href="http://www.us.onkyo.com/model.cfm?m=TA-RW255&class=Cassette&p=i">Onkyo TA-RW255</a> dual auto-reverse cassette deck plays tapes(!), offers all sorts of unnecessary conveniences (like Fast-Forward and Reverse), costs $199, and is available NOW.