LATEST ADDITIONS

Um, Vinyl Man's favorite colors are orange and green, obviously. This photo was taken by intrepid crime photographer, Michael Lavorgna, outside the old Justice League Europe Headquarters in Paris, France.

Neither its rather pedestrian name nor Manley Labs' own <A HREF="http://www.manleylabs.com/containerpages/100200.html">literature</A&gt; gives much of a clue as to the 175 monoblock's special pedigree. Where are the bands, the fanfare?! After all, the rolling-out of a 6L6&#150;based high-power audiophile-grade tube amplifier definitely qualifies in my book as a momentous occasion. Deplorably, such happenings are rare indeed; the 6L6 has been unjustly neglected in high-end circles.

"My vision for the future is one where all manufacturers sell their products directly to the end user. In this way, even the audiophiles in Dead Horse, Alaska can have access to all the audio manufacturing community has to offer." Thus wrote loudspeaker designer David Fokos in a letter introducing his new company Icon Acoustics to the press at <I>Stereophile</I>'s High End Hi-Fi show in San Mateo, CA last April (footnote 1). Mr. Fokos, a Cornell graduate who for some years worked for Conrad-Johnson Design and designed that company's well-regarded Synthesis and Sonographe loudspeaker models, feels very strongly that the traditional retailing setup is inefficient when it comes to exposing audiophiles to a wide enough choice of product, particularly when it comes to loudspeakers. With 300 speaker manufacturers listed in the <I>Audio</I> directory issue but even a major retailer restricted to probably six brands, even big-city audiophiles will only be able to audition a fraction of the total number of brands. "Our industry is suffering from product saturation of its retail distribution network."

Last week's poll revealed continuing support for FM radio, though other broadcast services are clearly making inroads. If you listen to "radio," what service do you listen to <I>most</I>?

<A HREF="http://nhthifi.com/">NHT</A&gt; is back. Less than five months after the veteran speaker company, aka Now Hear This, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/nht_takes_a_break/">declared</A&gt; that it would sell off remaining inventory, pay its bills, and spend time rethinking its future, it has regrouped and returned with a new marketing approach.

It’s a sure thing that Michael Jackson’s life was not going to end pretty. In fact, it can be argued that this mode of death is not the worst thing that could have happened. Seeing him waste away from cancer or die in prison, or collapse and die onstage would have all been worse. You could feel that how ever it was going to occur, Michael stood a good chance of going out in spectacularly tragic fashion. If the rumors are true, it was a shot of Demerol and he stopped breathing. At least it was mercifully fast. Can you imagine the mad scramble that’s now going to occur for his assets being carried out while he was still breathing? And who gave him this alleged shot? I have a feeling that a number of Dr. Nicks are about to be uncovered. At least his poor tortured soul departed quickly for what I hope is a better life somewhere else.

Released in July, <I>Live at Otto's Shrunken Head</I> (STPH020-2) is the latest Stereophile CD from reviewer Bob Reina's jazz quartet, Attention Screen. Unlike the group's first CD, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/907att"><I>Live at Merkin Hall</I></A> (STPH018-2, released in 2007), which was recorded with multiple microphones, I captured the eight improvisations on <I>Live at Otto's</I> using a single pair of mikes.