I'll admit feeling the MrSpeakers Aeon Flow Closed look a bit alien to my eyes when first I saw it. Now that it's been on my desk for a few months I find it quite appealing. Not so much for it's looksdon't get me wrong, I quite like the lookbut more because I've come to appreciate the comfort of them. No surprises when the Aeon Flow Open showed up...they were right at home on my head. Good thing too, they'll be spending a lot of time there.
And what better way to serve those possible givers of audio giftsand, at the same time, honor our hobby's most deserving designers and manufacturersthan with our annual Product of the Year awards?
The question took me off-guard. It didn't come from one of the usual suspectsa hostile anti-audiophile, or a non-audiophile who simply can't fathom why we should care so much about something as nonessential as sound reproductionbut from Louis, a sharp dressed, goateed, middle-aged man who was known, among his audio repair shop's clientele, for not only his virtuosity as a classical solo violinist, but his expertisesome would say his preternatural abilityin setting up turntables to sound their very best.
As musical movements go, rock and jazz seem to be running out of new ideas, most of the stylistic pathways in both genres having been explored to their logical conclusions. In rock in particular, every stream of inspiration has been followed past its headwaters, every droplet of inspiration wrung from established forms.
And for the 27th year in a row, the December Stereophile includes our choices for "Product of the Year."
