A recent study by analysts Customer Growth Partners has found that department stores, specialty retailers, and other chains that fill US shopping malls accounted for just 19% of total retail sales in 2002, down from 38% in 1995. Mall-based retailers accounted for 22% of 2001's retail sales.
<A HREF="http://www.npr.org">National Public Radio</A> is in no danger of going off the air any time in the next century, thanks to a massive gift from the estate of philanthropist Joan B. Kroc, widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc.
The first part of our subwoofer review trilogy finds Larry Greenhill plumbing the depths with the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?955">Paradigm Reference Servo-15 powered subwoofer</A>. Greenhill says that the wide range of adjustments available on the Servo-15 can help it blend into most environments—but having all that choice can cut both ways, notes LG.
<B>VIVALDI: <I>The Four Seasons</I>; Flute Concerto in D ("Il Gardellino"), RV 428; Harpsichord Concerto in A, RV 780</B><BR> </I>Igor Kipnis, Connecticut Early Music Festival Ensemble<BR> Chesky CD78 (CD only). David Chesky, Jeremy Kipnis, prods.; Jeremy Kipnis, eng. DDD. TT: 62:15
"You can't <I>get</I> deep bass in your room," a reviewer from another magazine who'd never visited my room insisted recently on the phone. "Do you know how long a 20Hz bass wave <I>is</I>? It's <I>40 feet long</I>, and your room is <I>tiny</I>."
From <I>The Audio Catechism</I>:<BR><B>Q: <I>What is a subwoofer?<BR></B>A: </I>A large, ugly device that must be placed in the most inconvenient location in the listening room—for instance, in front of the only door.<BR><B>Q: <I>What is the purpose of the subwoofer?<BR></B>A: </I>To produce prodigious amounts of low-frequency sound and to glorify its owner, who can rest safe in the knowledge that <I>his</I> is the <I>biggest</I>.
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) once wrote, "The less limited one feels, the more intolerable all limitation appears" (footnote 1). Although directed at the paradoxical observation that suicide rates are higher in newly prosperous countries than in those mired in poverty, his comment applies equally well to subwoofers.
Some describe avant-garde musical forms as the only music that is fresh and new, while others consider the whole genre cacophonous noise. What does "avant-garde music" mean to you
Although the component that actually produces the sound is obviously the loudspeaker, audiophiles know that everything in the system—digital or analog source, preamplifier, amplifier, cables, room acoustics—has an influence on sound quality. No matter how good the speaker, its performance depends on the quality of the signal, the speaker's acoustical environment, and how the speaker is set up in that environment. I've heard speakers that I <I>knew</I> to be topnotch performers sound dreadful at audio shows and in dealers' listening rooms.
Interest in super-efficient, horn-loaded, compression-driver loudspeakers has grown in the past few years, fueled in part by a renewed fascination among many hobbyists with low-powered, single-ended triode tube amplifiers. But staring down the maws of two Tubby the Tubas is not every audiophile's idea of a good time—even when the resulting sound is spectacularly fast, coherent, and extended.