LATEST ADDITIONS

The vast majority of audiophile equipment is well-built, but accidents do happen. Have you ever had anything smoke or catch on fire?

I’m on the N train heading to Manhattan from Bay Ridge and there’s a fat Mexican baby in a dull red stroller. She is screaming her heart out. I’m trying to read an article in <i>New York</i> magazine recommended to me by a co-worker, but I don’t think I’ll make it to the end. I’ve read enough about addiction to know how ugly it can be; I don’t want to live through it again.

I’ve told you a bit about my favorite cassette label, Al Bjornaa’s <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/why_cassettes/">Scotch Tapes</a>, out of Batchawana Bay, Ontario, Canada. In <a href="http://www.imposemagazine.com/features/scotch-tapes-label-sampler">this Impose article</a>, Al goes into more detail, explaining how he built the label, and revealing some of his big plans for the remainder of the year, which include 60-70 new tapes, 4-5 vinyl releases, approximately 20 lathe cuts, a dozen zines, a couple of 8-tracks, and a monster summer compilation. (You can also download a Scotch sampler.)

Underwood, the new vinyl-only record label, which takes its name from the typewriter invented by Frank Wagner in 1896, was founded by writer Nathan Dunne. Dunne’s goal is to publish short stories on vinyl records. Underwood urges us to slow down, focus, listen, and enjoy.

Good news for jazz and vinyl lovers: The world’s greatest record store (at least in New Jersey), <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/708awsi/index.html">the Princeton Record Exchange</a>, just received a collection of over 2000 carefully maintained jazz titles, and they are now on sale, most priced between $1 and $4.99.

At this moment in time, there’s honestly no way I can justify spending more money on sweet, wonderful, soul-stirring vinyl records. I just can’t do it. I have bills to pay. I have records at home that I haven’t listened to yet. I have laundry to do and groceries to buy. But, damn, am I tempted to go to the First Annual Collect-i-Bowl Record Show at <a href="http://www.brooklynbowl.com/">Brooklyn Bowl</a> this Sunday.

"Reviewed in the box!" is what <I>Stereophile</I>'s founder, the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/j_gordon_holt">J. Gordon Holt</A>, used to call it. You might think you're reading a review, but the realization slowly dawns that there's nothing in the text that could not have been gleaned from the manufacturer's brochure, nothing to indicate that the writer had even opened the box the product came in. When I read a review in another publication or online, I judge it by doing what I recommend <I>Stereophile</I>'s readers do when they read <I>this</I> magazine: I look for the nugget I <I>didn't</I> already know, the facet I <I>wasn't</I> expecting, the concluding jewel I <I>couldn't</I> have predicted without ever having tried the component myself. Sadly, all too often too many of what are promoted as "reviews" on the Web are merely descriptions.