When I attended the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/120406language">2006 GuangZhou Hi-Fi Show</A> in China, it seemed as though most of the Asian-built loudspeakers I saw were huge, astonishingly efficient, and had horns. When I walked into Usher Audio Technology's room, however, Paul Chen was making music happen with the Usher S-520s ($500/pair).
Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. announced May 19 that it was acquiring online classical retailer ArkivMusic, LLC for $3 million in cash at closing and three annual payments of $500,000.
<i>This isn't "perfect sound," it's perfect life.</i><br>
<b>—George Reisch, <i>Stereophile</i>, Vol.20 No.9</b>
Dear Stephen,<br>
You probably will be cleaning records over the long holiday weekend, as your cleaning machine was shipped today.
Part of the problem is that I'm almost always thinking about what I should, or could, be writing here on the blog. I'll be in the shower, thinking: "Man, I haven't written anything <i>good</i> lately. Haven't written anything that's inspired discussion. Maybe, today, I'll write about my father and how his alcoholism relates to speaker cables…."
The conventional wisdom in publishing is that magazines are dependent on scoops—that getting the news out to the readers first is of primary importance. Yes, being timely with what it has to say is important for any publication. But soon after I joined <I>Stereophile</I> in 1986, a series of negative experiences with review samples that were little better than prototypes led me to rethink the need for scoops. As a result, I decided to impose restrictions on what we chose to review; this would allow us to focus the magazine's review resources on products that were out of beta testing and were ready for prime time, and, most important, would be representative of what our readers could audition for themselves at specialty retailers, confident in the knowledge that what they heard would be what we had reviewed.
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y9JI0GXkARQ&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y9JI0GXkARQ&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="450" height="355"></embed></object>
One of the first affordable loudspeakers I reviewed for <I>Stereophile</I> was the original <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standspeakers/628">Paradigm Reference Studio/20</A> bookshelf model, in the February 1998 issue (Vol.21 No.2). At the time, I felt that the $650/pair speaker was a breakthrough—although not completely devoid of colorations, its ratio of price to performance set a benchmark a decade ago. I kept the Studio/20s around for several years to compare with other bookshelf speakers I reviewed, and they remained listed in <I>Stereophile</I>'s "Recommended Components" for several years after that. The Studio/20 is now in its fourth (v.4) iteration, so I thought I'd grab a pair to hear how they compared with current affordable bookshelf designs.
Her name was E. and the gentle quaver in her soft voice gave me the impression that she was nervous, anxious, young. Something about it seemed sweet, seemed sincere. Which made me want to help her more. She was calling from England, and the connection was crystal clear. I could hear her perfectly, though she was so far away. She was doing research on the high end hi-fi industry.
My first record cleaning purchases: A Hunt EDA carbon fiber brush for dry-cleaning (footnote 1), a MoFi brush for wet-cleaning, a couple bottles of MoFi fluid (Super Deep Cleaner for the really nasty records, and Super Record Wash for the plain old dirty ones), 100 Polyline inner sleeves (because of all the different options these were the least expensive per sleeve, but, at some point, I'd like to try the MoFi rice paper sleeves), and 100 4-mil outer sleeves (because 4-mil seemed just thick enough, and because I liked the packaging).