Knowing
On this occasion, however, John had not come over to tell me to run. Rather, he had come to tell me where to go: “Good work, but I think you’ll have to steer more towards audio,” he suggested.
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Industry Update
This is the time of year we are generally inundated with press releases announcing new home theater products that debuted at CEDIA Expo last week (and as audionerds, er 'philes, we <I>are</I> fascinated, of course). However, this year we also received word of some interesting audio products from two of the most consistently innovative high-end audio companies, Meridian and Classé.
Mark Levinson Sponsors Sir Paul
For all of the audiophiles who lament that the industry is simply preaching to the converted, Harman International's Mark Levinson® brand has a response: Wait'll you get a load of <I>this</I>.
F. Alton Everest: 1909–2005
<I>We were saddened to learn just this week that F. Alton Everest died earlier in the month. Like many audiophiles, much of what we know about acoustics was gleaned from Everest's authoritative books on the subject, including several editions of his </I>Master Handbook of Acoustics<I>, </I>Critical Listening and Auditory Perception<I>, and </I>Acoustical Techniques for Home and Studio<I>. Everest packed a lot of living into 95 years, earning a BSc in EE from Oregon State and an EE from Stanford. He taught at Oregon State and Hong Kong Baptist Universities, worked in film production for 25 years, and was an acoustic consultant for 15. During WWII, he spent four years in undersea acoustic research. He was an Emeritus Member of the Acoustical Society, Life Member of the IEEE, Life Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Member of the Audio Engineering Society, and cofounder and past president of American Scientific Affiliation.
Running
Seriously: Will you show me around?
I'm New Here
The AZ9345 is on right now. And it sounds pretty damn good to me. I’m listening to Smog’s latest album, <i>A River Ain’t Too Much to Love</i>, and god, I love it. I love it. I don’t even know exactly what it is. I keep wondering, “What is it? What’s so great about this album?”
Some Might Call It a Den
Not how. I mean to say: I should tell you something about the circumstances surrounding my personal act of listening.
No Real Beginnings or Endings
The music we made in Genie Boom was not unlike the music made by the pumps and steam lines and reactors of Firmenich. Michelle drummed on garbage cans, a red school bell, a gas tank, whatever banged. Todd pressed buttons on his Casio synthesizer and Roland drum machine. I plugged five cheap guitars—old Silvertones and Kays, before they became popular—into whatever amps I could find, turned the knobs on my effects pedals all the way up, and screamed the lines from my poems into the guitars’ pick-ups.
How long (on average) can you listen to an audio system in one sitting before you get listener fatigue?
We all have different thresholds for listener fatigue
Tony Federici
Back in the spring of 1986, I was visiting a hi-fi show in Lucerne, Switzerland. In the KEF/McIntosh/Perreaux room, I was engaged by a voluble American, who wanted to talk about the changes I was making with the English magazine <I>Hi-Fi News</I>. The conversation shifted to the hotel bar, then to a restaurant. The American was one Tony Federici, who at that time was distributing Perreaux gear in the US. With an education in the philosophy of science, Tony's comments were insightful and challenging. He was never at a loss for an opinion! After I moved to the US to take the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/352">editorial reins at <I>Stereophile</I></A>, Tony stayed in touch, and many were the conversations we had about audio magazines, the audio business, and music.