LATEST ADDITIONS

There is a pile of boxes in my office. Nothing unusual. Boxes are a fundamental aspect of our lives here at <i>Stereophile</i>, a fundamental aspect of the lives of most audiophiles, I imagine. Inside these boxes, however, there are no amplifiers, no loudspeakers, no turntables. These boxes hold the packaging materials for our Attention Screen release, <i><a href="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/907att/">Live at Merkin Hall</a></i>.

German Barbie

Late on Saturday, the last night of SXSW, I somehow ended up having a pint with a mixed party of American and British band members, only one of whom I knew previously, when suddenly the subject of the British government’s support of the arts came up. Seems these four young lads, and their frontwoman&#151;one stunning fulfillment of my perky blonde English chick singer fantasy (oh my)&#151;hadn’t used their money to come all the way to Texas. No, the government had picked up the tab. The fact that they were vaguely ashamed&#151;because being on the dole is unhip and kind of the opposite of DIY&#151;told me it was true.

As Chester Rice, co-inventor of the moving-coil loudspeaker, once ruefully observed: "The ancients have stolen our inventions." So often, what is painted as new and innovative turns out to be something someone thought of long before. We have a habit of forgetting, and that applies not only to inventions, but to knowledge of other kinds as well.

A persistent complaint from some of our readers concerns our seeming preoccupation with exotic components. (Presumably what they mean are scarce, unusual, or hard-to-find components, because "exotic" really means "from a foreign country," and there is sure as hell nothing hard-to-find about a Panasonic receiver.) "Why," you ask, "do you devote so much space to reports on components we can't buy from our local audio discounter? Why can't we have more reports about products from the old, established, reliable companies like KLH, Harman/Kardon, Electro-Voice and Sansui, whose stuff we can listen to at a local dealer before we commit our hard-earned dollars to a purchase?" One subscriber even cancelled his subscription because of this, claiming that the unavailability of the products we review makes our reports "irrelevant." Well, he had a point, but not a very good one.

A gift from Uncle JA: The DB Systems DBP-10 protractor. This thing has been around since the dawn of time. When Jesus needed a protractor to properly align the Denon DL-103 moving-coil cartridge on his heavily modified Technics SL-1200 turntable, he called up David Hadaway at DB Systems. “Thou shall never sell this kick-ass protractor for more than $49, David,” said Jesus. David, of course, allowed Jesus to keep his sample on “a long-term loan.”

A gift from Uncle Art: <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/phonocartridges/1207zu/">Introduced in 1962</a>, the Denon DL-103 moving-coil cartridge ($229)&#151a music-lover’s friend, an audiophile classic, a <i>man’s</i> cartridge.