<I>Sigh</I>, <I>The Golden Compass</I> opens this week and the kooks are out denouncing it as "atheist propaganda." I read—and greatly enjoyed—Pullman's trilogy and I thought it was more an argument with Milton than with God himself.
PBS has posted a site dedicated to Nikola Tesla, my candidate for coolest scientist ever. Among other things, it includes a virtual tour o the Niagara Falls electrical generating plant and a fascinating hint that Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was created out of fear that the USSR had perfected his charged-particle beam weapon (you see, there's this huge controversy over what happened to his papers after his death).
Sam Tellig doesn't call the office often. In the seven years that I've been at <i>Stereophile</i>, Sam has called only a handful of times. When he <i>does</i> call, however, it's serious. Sam just called.
Jon Carroll is always worth reading, but you really don't want to miss a column that has this lede: "This is such a wonderful story. It should serve as an example to us all, and as a shining light to the young. Yes, you can do something positive for society, while still breaking the law and cheesing everybody off! It's win-win."
There's a hops shortage!
Don't you <I>really</I> wish the Bond girls are real?
Of course they should—wasn't that the core of George Smiley's appeal?James Bond may be fun to watch, but he'd never really last in the field.
Some audiophiles will only buy what they can hear, which poses a challenge if what you want is hundreds of miles away. How far have you traveled to audition or purchase an audio component? <P><I>Note to last week's vote commenters: due to a server move, we lost several days' worth of votes. We're all better now but we apologize if your comments didn't make it.</I>
When John Atkinson reviewed the Benchmark DAC1 USB digital/analog processor (watch for it in the January 2008 <I>Stereophile</I>), his test results raised some eyebrows at Benchmark. You'll have to read the review to discover what, but suffice it to say that Benchmark did some testing of their own and wrote us an interesting alert.
Obviously, no one wants to listen to exaggerated bass, italicized highs, or colored mids. But if you (as I have in the past few months) plug in several high-quality integrated amplifiers, each designed to a different price point, into the same basic signal chain, you'll experience a wide disparity of sound signatures.