LATEST ADDITIONS

The 23rd <A HREF="http://www.salonsonimage.com">Salon Son & Image</A> high-fidelity show, cosponsored by <I>Stereophile</I>, takes place in Montreal's Hilton Bonaventure March 26&#150;28. (An additional day, March 25, is reserved for the trade and press.) With 10,000 to 12,000 attendees expected, including a sizable American contingent and several thousand Canadians from outside Quebec province, who will take advantage of bilingual presentations and literature and the anticipated absence of snow, SSI remains the largest North America audio show that is open to the public.

You might’ve noticed my big smiling mug on the stereophile.com home page today, calling attention to my review of <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/monster_cable_beats_by_dr_dre_stu…’s Beats by Dr. Dre headphones</a>. When I posed for that picture&#151a few months ago and with a hellish hangover from a night of fun spent at <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/at_the_monkeyhaus/">John DeVore’s Monkeyhaus</a>&#151I had no idea that I’d be today’s top model. The photo was the work of our sneaky web monkey, Jon Iverson. I came into the office, went to our site, and spit coffee all over my monitor. Hilarious.

And here's how <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_weight_of_my_loneliness/"… room</a> looks today. As I said, it looks, feels, and <i>sounds</i> like home.

“Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes 'round
They sing "I'm in love. What's that song?
I'm in love with that song."

(from “Alex Chilton” by The Replacements)

My five month old cell phone fried itself dead. Traffic in downtown Austin crawled inch by inch. A friend, who called himself a “capitalist,” called long distance to tell me Obama’s health plan was going to bankrupt the country. But all of that paled in comparison to the strange news that on the first night of South By Southwest 2010, the great Alex Chilton had died just before leaving New Orleans to come to Austin to play a Big Star reunion. Or as the more cynical among us had it, <I>another</I> Big Star reunion.

<i>Almost there. And vodka tonics make lifting easier.</i>

For a time, I had my gear sitting on top of my new <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_weight_of_my_loneliness/"… Expedit bookcase</a>. An identical bookcase sat along the front wall and held a ton of books, but proved visually distracting when listening to music; it also weakened my system's soundstaging abilities.

It's difficult to believe that the former top model of Vandersteen Audio's line of loudspeakers, the Model 5, has been in production in one form or another since 1997. Time passes quickly when you're having fun. Like all Vandersteen speakers, the 5 was and remains a good value <I>and</I> performance proposition. For all the 5's high technology and excellent performance both measured and audible, its price now starts at under $20,000/pair (up from about $10,000/pair when the 5 was introduced in 1997), including a built-in, proprietary powered subwoofer in each cabinet, and a sophisticated equalization system for room compensation.