LATEST ADDITIONS

Stereophile columnist John Marks brought an encyclopedic knowledge of music and musicians to the magazine when he started his "Fifth Element" column in March 2001. At HE2007, he played some of his favorite recordings in as many rooms as he could, including his own recording of the Herbert Howells organ piece Larry Greenhill mentioned in another posting (Master Tallis's Lament, a personal favorite of mine) and an extraordinary choral recording, When David Heard, from the young composer Eric Whitacre. As you can see from this photo taken in the Egglestonworks, Rogue, and Echobusters room, Showgoers very much appreciated John's efforts.

As Robert Deutsch mentioned in his <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/fsi2007/041307gershman/">report</A&gt; from the 2007 Montreal Show, Ofra (left) and Eli (right) Gershman of Gershman Acoustics have been exhibitors at just about every audio/home theater show the past few years. As in Montreal, the Gershmans were demming their new Sonogram speaker at HE2007. More conventional in appearance than their flagship Black Swan, the Sonogram, photographed here by Larry Greenhill, is priced at a very competitive $2500/pair.

An enduring aspect of Audio Shows is the meeting up of old friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, who all share a sense of belonging to a single community. Shown here in a chance meeting at the Grand Hyatt's entrance are (l&ndash;r): veteran speaker designer Richard Vandersteen, tube amp manufacturer Mark O'Brien of Rogue Audio, and <I>Stereophile</I>'s associate publisher Keith Pray.

Might the Earth's magnetic field reverse itself? And what if it did?

Roger Ebert, too.

When I was in GuangZhou, my hotel was a nexus for American couples meeting their <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/china2006/120206barbie/">adopted</A&gt; Chinese babies. My heart went out to these newly minted families doting over their new additions, eyes brimming with hope and love.

It's about time this great composer was recognized for the deep well of complexity and musical emotional he brought to the concert (and recording stage). If you can listen to the Second Symphony and not experience that dark three o'clock of the soul, then maybe music just isn't your thing.

The official closing time of HE 2007 was 5pm on Sunday. I was surprised to see, then, that there were some people registering even as late as three o'clock Sunday afternoon. Now, <I>that's</I> real devotion to the hobby!

Performing music in a group is all about collaboration and communication. Look closely at this picture of the John Atkinson Trio, in performance on the last day of HE2007. JA is playing a solo, and both pianist Bob Reina and drummer Allen Perkins are listening and watching intently. In his comments after the number, Bob said that they had some differences of opinion about how to end the number, and resolving these differences required some give-and-take in the actual playing. Now that's jazz!

...and 3.6kW into 2 ohms! All in a day's work for Krell's $40,000/pair, Krell Evolution 900 monoblock amplifier. On passive display with its top off, you can see that the amplifier has three output modules, each containing a pair of driver stages, 28 bipolar output devices, and a massive heatsink that vents heat in chimney fashion through vents in the top and bottom of the chassis. The power supply features two 3kVA toroidal transformers, 52 electrolytic capacitors, each rated at 1800&#181;F, 900watt, and 105&#176;F. Weight? Again I didn't want to know, but was told it was a mere 175 lbs!