LATEST ADDITIONS

I couldn't do it, but these eight physicists rose to the challenge: Explain in one page what the Higgs boson is and why we want to find it.

In the June issue of <I>Stereophile</I>, another classic component is reviewed (the Eico HF-81 amplifier). Even though they don't measure up by today's standards, many audiophiles prefer certain classic designs. Are there any classic components that you prefer to newer products?

<I>Laser turntable launch:</I> Despite its having been available on a limited basis for several years (and having been written about in magazines like <I>Stereophile</I> since 1988), the ELP Corporation's <A HREF="http://www.elpj.com/main.html">laser turntable</A> was officially introduced into the North American market on May 18.

I told a friend that I'd received a pair of Vienna Acoustics' new Beethoven Concert Grand loudspeakers for review. "They're designed more for music lovers than for audiophiles," he said. I can't imagine a more damning statement&mdash;about audiophiles.

Given Audio Note's early dominance of the low-power scene, you'd expect any loudspeaker from them to be a high-efficiency design, and you'd be right. What you wouldn't expect is how they go about doing it, since none of the 20-odd models in their speaker line appears to be much more than a plain-Jane two-way box, with nary a horn or whizzer in sight.

One day last year, my friend Larry and I were talking about our college-fraternity days and loudspeakers. Those were four of the best years of my life. Strong friendships were formed, and ever since, we've kept in touch with most of our fraternity's brothers-in-heart. Ours was not a jock house, nor was it the last bastion of rampant male sexuality&mdash;it was, after all, an <I>MIT</I> frat house. But it was full of music lovers who fell neatly into three camps: the California School owned JBL Decades, the New England School had Smaller Advents, and the Renegades boasted bootlegged Bose 901s (footnote 1).

It may read like a page out of a classic corporate crime thriller, but the threat is real. ExpoPul, a company whose factory in Saratov, Russia manufactures vacuum tubes under the brand names Sovtek, Electro-Harmonix, Tungsol, Svetlana, Mullard, and others&mdash;tubes that include the 6H30 "super tube"&mdash;is threatened by one of the many Russian corporate "raiders" who are increasingly stealing businesses from their rightful owners. If the threatened hostile takeover proves successful, two-thirds of the world's supply of vacuum tubes&mdash;tubes vital to the sound of audiophile gear and instruments from such well-known companies as McIntosh, Audio Research, BAT, Jadis, Fender, KORG, Peavey, Vox, Soldano, Carvin, Ampeg, and Crane&mdash;could become a thing of the past.