LATEST ADDITIONS

We all know it's impossible to reproduce live music. An obvious statement, no doubt, and one that holds every audiophile hostage to the never-ending search. As a musician, I find the situation especially frustrating. The constant reminder of live <I>vs</I> reproduced makes living with an audio system a serious compromise, regardless of price or quality. About three and a half years ago, however, I reviewed a product which I felt, and still feel, offers the first real glimpse of that impossible dream: the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506">B&amp;W 801 Matrix Monitor</A> (footnote 1). Although it wasn't perfect, I found this speaker provided more musical honesty than anything I had heard before. In this respect, it established a new standard by which others would be judged.

We all know that vinyl collectors like the sound and feel of a 12" LP, but reader DAB suspects many of you horde sealed copies of LPs to sell later. Do you ever buy LPs that you never open to sell later?

Some people might wonder what it is about me and <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/708rega/">the Rega P3</a>. Why would I simply settle on the old Rega when there are so many other similarly priced turntables out there?

My home, which overlooks a dairy farm, is easy to see from a mile away, invisible from the end of its own driveway. Elevation: 1345'. Population: 3.

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At some point, I hope to post a long list of links (A Long List of Links) to sites that specialize in vinyl LPs. This will be for you, dear readers. But also for me! I have been collecting the web addresses and adding them to a Favorites folder. If you know of some sites that offer great selections of LPs (new or used) and you want to help me go deeper into debt (just kidding, Clifton), please do share! Together we will build a database of all the World Wide Web's most alluring online stores. (Not <i>those</i> kinds of stores! LP stores, you naughty naughties.)

It's now been eight years since a Rega P3 turntable passed through my listening room. While the new P3-24 superficially resembles the P3 (and virtually every other Rega 'table), the company has made some significant changes, including upgrading to the high-quality, low-voltage (24V), electronically adjusted motor used in the more expensive P5, P7, and P9. As in those models, an electronic circuit trims the phase angle of the P3-24's motor coils, thus substantially reducing motor vibrations. In 1998, during a factory tour, a Rega engineer demonstrated the circuit's effectiveness to me. As he adjusted the circuit board's pot, vibrations from the motor dramatically decreased, until it was difficult to tell if the motor was spinning or not. Back then, this "hand-trimmed" motor technology was available only in the P9. The P3-24 uses a less sophisticated version of the same basic idea.