LATEST ADDITIONS

New York City's Matador Records rewards hardcore music lovers and promotes the growth of the music industry with their intelligent "<a href="http://www.buyearlygetnow.com/">Buy Early Get Now</a>" plan. With BEGN, fans can pre-order upcoming albums through participating trustworthy retailers across the nation. In addition to the actual album, BEGN packages include exclusive bonuses such as MP3s, posters, band merchandise, and, a free, legal stream of the entire album weeks before the official release date. I like it.

If you ever find yourself in an audiophile-type argument and need proof that, in the 21st century, manufacturing high-performance audio gear to sell for a reasonable retail price is becoming an impossibility, point to Vincent T.A.C.'s TubeLine SV-236MK integrated amplifier, designed in Germany and built in China.

During <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/a_visit_to_mikeys_and_the_gla… visit to Michael Fremer's house</a>, alongside all the LPs and cables and enormous amplifiers, I found myself thinking: <i>If only others could experience this, here, like this, they'd understand what all the fuss is about...</i>

Remember <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/my_bat-lightning_heart/">that crush I had</a> on Bat For Lashes' Natasha Khan?

I was very impressed by the hi-fi dealers I encountered while at the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/">2009 Salon Son & Image</a> show in Montreal. Representatives from <a href="http://www.filtronique.com/en/default.asp">Son-Or-Filtronique</a&gt;, <a href="http://www.audiobasics.com/">Audio Basics</a>, and <a href="http://www.cdfaudio.com/">Coup de Foudre</a> seemed intelligent, enthusiastic, friendly, energetic, and cool: All qualities the high-end audio industry could use more of.

After <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/solidpreamps/1207bo">Fred Kaplan reviewed</A> Boulder Amplifiers' 810 line preamplifier and 860 power amplifier for the December 2007 <I>Stereophile</I>, John Atkinson requested that I listen to the 860 in my own system for a while. Never having reviewed <I>any</I> Boulder kit, I was curious.

It's been a while since I auditioned a Meridian CD player in my system. I had enthusiastically reviewed the English company's groundbreaking <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/285meridian">Pro-MCD player</A> in early 1986, and over the years had kept up with the progress they were making in digital playback, either through my own reviews or by performing the measurements to accompany reviews by other <I>Stereophile</I> writers. The 508-24 player, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/590">reviewed by Wes Phillips</A> in May 1998, was one of the finest digital products of the 1990s, I thought. But when Meridian began promoting surround sound and DVD-Audio at the turn of the century, their goals became somewhat incompatible with my own. Yes, I can appreciate what surround playback can do, but my own musical life is still solidly rooted in Two-Channel Land.