Mentioning the new <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias"><I>Stereophile</I> blog</A> to folks this past week, I usually got two questions. First, "Cool, what will it be about?" Then, "What, in fact, is a blog?"
Throughout college, Michelle and I—along with our very good friend, Todd—played in a performance art/noise rock band called Genie Boom. We took the name from the sky-blue steel beast that you sometimes see at construction sites, or on highways, or—here in New York City—even on Madison Avenue; the same sky-blue steel beast that I once used to propel myself a hundred feet into the air to install all sorts of I-don’t-know-what along the tanks and pumps and whatever else that make up Firmenich, the chemical plant where I worked at the time. They make flavors and fragrances; much of what you taste and smell everyday comes from Firmenich. I spent four summers there, painting curbs and railings “emergency yellow,” watching flaming bits of iron fall from the welders’ gloved hands, finding beauty in how smooth a beveled pipe could be.
Wood is not an engineering material. It might look pretty, but it's inconsistent and therefore unpredictable. So we smash cheap wood into sawdust and then glue it all together again to create something that can be machined. This is called medium-density fiberboard, or MDF. We then thinly slice some classy hardwood—hopefully harvested from sustainable sources—and use it to cover the ugly MDF. This might have made sense back when Chippendale was making furniture, but it seems strangely old-fashioned in our age of plastics and composites. I haven't seen wood trim on a TV set for more than a decade. Why is it still the norm for loudspeakers?
One of my favorite parts of attending <I>Stereophile</I>'s Home Entertainment shows—aside from seeking out the sexy new gear and pressing the flesh of readers—is the "Ask the Editors" panel discussions. What begins as a Q&A session usually turns into a free-for-all, as the outspoken and opinionated likes of Sam Tellig, Michael Fremer, Ken Kessler, and John Marks barely give room for wallflowers such as Art Dudley and yours truly to express our opinions—except when editor John Atkinson asks each of us, in turn, to cast our votes for the "most interesting rooms to visit." At both the HE2004 and HE2005 "Ask the Editors" panels, one company was recommended by a number of <I>Stereophile</I> writers, me included: Almarro Products.
I've never lived in New York City, but I've visited often, especially the Upper West Side, where my wife's grandparents lived for many years. There's a little jazz bar there, on Broadway near 106th Street, aka Duke Ellington Boulevard.
<B>CHARLIE HADEN LIBERATION MUSIC ORCHESTRA: <I>Not In Our Name</I></B><BR>
Charlie Haden, bass; Carla Bley, piano, arranger, conductor; Seneca Black, Michael Rodriguez, trumpet; Miguel Zenón, alto sax; Chris Cheek, Tony Malaby, tenor sax; Curtis Fowlkes, trombone; Ahnee Sharon Freeman, French horn; Joe Daley, tuba; Steve Cardenas, guitar; Matt Wilson, drums<BR>
Verve B000494902 (CD). 2005. Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Ruth Cameron, prods.; Gerard de Haro, eng. DDD? TT: 68:55<BR>
Performance <B>****</B><BR>
Sonics <B>****</B>
“Dated” is a bad word. I’ve never understood what it means to “date.” Does it have something to do with the passing of time?
Last June, Sennheiser, a multinational manufacturer of microphones, headphones, and wireless technology products, celebrated its 60th anniversary. The company was founded as Wennebostel Laboratories (Labor W) in 1945 by Dr. Fritz Sennheiser and seven other employees of the Institute for Radio Frequency Engineering and Electroacoustics at Hanover Technical University. At the time, as Dr. Sennheiser explained when I visited the company's Wennebostel facility 10 years ago, German radio engineers were prohibited by the occupying Allied forces from constructing communications equipment, so he and his crew needed to find something else they could do. In addition, supply shortages severely restricted the scope of what they might manufacture. Sennheiser determined that they could build test instruments such as millivolt meters from the parts they were able to recover from the Institute and the Allies. Seimens' Hanover branch bought the first samples and the startup company began to supply that firm with more and more complex products.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) maintains a <A HREF="http://www.eff.org">website</A> that we have found invaluable for keeping up with news about technological restrictions to information and fair use. Last week, we were directed to the EFF's new <A HREF="http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/guide/">User's Guide to DRM in Online Music</A>, which we recommend to everyone still undecided about buying into one of the online providers.
<I>Stereophile</I>'s Jon Iverson maintains that blind audio tests can only provide judgment on the listening acuity of those taking the test; not the relative merits of the equipment used in the process. But the subject is still a hot topic in our forums. What do you think?