The music begins before he arrives. There are horns and hollers and hand claps. Then comes the MC: "Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce the star of our show, the young man you've all been waiting for, Mister Soul! So, what d'you say? Let's all get together and welcome him to the stage with a great, big hand! How 'bout it?! How 'bout it?!"
In the March 2008 <I>Stereophile</I> (Vol.31 No.3), I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/308cay">wrote favorably</A> about the A-50T integrated amplifier from the Chinese company Cayin Audio. I was very impressed with its sound, appearance, and construction quality for the price: $1295. This positive experience led me to look into what other products Cayin's importer, VAS Industries, distributes here. More often than not, when a keen ear imports an interesting product into the US, that ear has also heard the good sounds of other products, as attested by the diverse product lines of distributors such as Music Hall and Sumiko. It turns out that VAS distributes Chinese loudspeakers made by Aurum Cantus, including seven two-channel models. I chose the entry-level design, the two-way V2M bookshelf speaker ($1890/pair), which combines a ribbon tweeter with a dynamic mid-woofer cone.
The vinyl boom is one thing, but do analog-loving audiophiles actually buy new records? How about you? Do you buy new LP records?
I was having breakfast in my hotel room on December 13, 2008, finally getting down to preparing the presentation I was to give at the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society scant hours later (footnote 1). I procrastinated a little more by checking my e-mail one more time. The message from Ivor Humphreys, once my deputy editor at the UK's <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> magazine (now just plain <I>Hi-Fi News</I>), and for many years technical editor at <I>Gramophone</I> magazine, was typically terse: "John Crabbe has died. He had a fall on the wintry ice a few days ago and broke an arm. He died at home yesterday. He was 79."
You've seen the ads from YG Acoustics: "The best loudspeaker on Earth. Period." It sounds arrogant. But come on—high-end audio has never been a field of shrinking violets. When <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1101ivor">Ivor Tiefenbrun</A> of Linn announced that the turntable, not the cartridge or loudspeakers, dictated the sound quality of an audio system, that was a man convinced that he was right and taking on the world. And was Krell's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1203dagostino">Dan D'Agostino</A> any less arrogant when, in 1980, he introduced the KSA-100 power amplifier? In a world where small size and high wattage were the norms, didn't it take a pair of big brass 'uns to bring out a honkin' huge slab of metal that put out only 100Wpc?
As an audiophile, one of my core beliefs has always been that, once they have heard better sounding music, everybody would want it. That's how it worked with me: My friend Bill sat me down in front of his Quad '57s and cued David Bowie's <I>Heroes</I> on the turntable and once I heard all of those new sounds coming out of my beloved old LP, I was a changed man.
Just to be clear: I never felt imprisoned, or controlled, by <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_transformation/">my television</a>. We had enjoyed a harmless, casual relationship. My television never told me what to do, never told me who to associate with; my television never judged me, never questioned my motives; my television gave me my space when I needed it. It had been a good television, for the most part. Sure, sometimes it could be obtuse or aloof with its poor reception; sometimes it seemed like it didn't want me to watch the Mets game on Saturday afternoons. But, all in all, I liked television. I still do. It's just that I like <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/my_new_rega_p3-24/">my turntable</a> <i>more</i>.
When my LP collection grew larger than space allowed for them on the couch, I started stacking records up against my short stools. A stack of a dozen or so LPs soon became a stack of three or four dozen LPs; soon became impossible to move and stretched from the left side of one stool all the way to the right side of the opposite stool. I had the Pulaski Skyway of vinyl LPs arcing through my small apartment.
I had made room for LPs on my tall bookshelf, carefully placing vinyl records along the cheap chipboard until the shelf bowed in the center and threatened to collapse. I didn't like this very much at all. I spent days away from home fearing that the shelf would give way. I'd come home from a long day in the office to find The Byrds and Henry Fiol, Herbie Hancock and Sam Beam, all in a jumbled mess of vinyl and plastic and wood and carpet. Yet, more LPs would soon arrive.
I had made room for vinyl LPs on my small bookshelf. It worked out alright, except that the shelf only went ten inches deep, leaving a good two inches of my poor, homeless LPs hanging off into open space. I could not continue to subject them to this sort of abuse. They would need a proper home, and soon.