LATEST ADDITIONS

You may have now read as much German as I dare put into print, but you'll likely read far more about Voxativ's revamp of its first loudspeaker, the formerly discontinued, single 8" driver Ampeggio loudspeaker (€25,900/pair), in the coming months.

"People kept asking for it," Voxativ owner Inès Adler told me. "We've learned a lot in the 20 years since it was first issued, and have been able to optimize and specially tune the design. Yet we've managed to keep it at the same price it was two decades ago."

This sign may not look auspicious, situated as it is over a trash basket. But this poster next to the exit stairs of the Kieferngarten stop of the U-Bahn, Munich's equivalent of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's network of underground and overground trains, was essential for people walking from the train to Munich High End's home in the MOC.

Nor was it the only sign I encountered. Many subways stops—even the airport—displayed large posters announcing the annual well-attended Munich High End audio show.

The most money I've ever spent on a pair of loudspeakers was back in the early 1990s, when I bought a pair of used TAD TH-4001 wooden horns and their associated TD-4001 compression drivers. The TAD horn's smooth, micro-resolved response was a refinement upgrade from my multicell Altec horns; plus, the TADs' French-polished wood looked radically less industrial than the soldered-tin, tar-filled 1005/288C horns they replaced. None of my horn-fanatic friends had anything sonically or aesthetically comparable, and all of them were envious. I didn't keep the TADs long, because the friend who admired them most made me a very "friendly" offer.

That was my first experience with Japanese loudspeaker design, and it exposed me to a level of engineering precision and fine craftmanship I had not yet encountered in American-made speakers.

This, Stereophile's June 2023 issue, is the 50th I've produced as editor. That seems like a lot—yet the four-plus years it took have flown by; it seems impossible that I've done this 50 times already. Still, the main thing it makes me think is how inexperienced I remain: It will take another 28 years to match JA1's record. That's unlikely to happen: I'm not sure when I'll retire, but I hope it will be before I turn 87. What have I learned? I've learned a lot about producing this magazine, and I've gained a lot of detailed knowledge, especially about specific hi-fi components. I've gained some broader knowledge, too, including a deeper appreciation for the crucial importance of the time domain in hi-fi—of the fact that music happens in the time domain and we experience it there. In the very best systems, that fact is respected and exploited.

Over the last 40 years, I have set up or serviced literally thousands of turntables, and during that time I have seen a lot of increasingly sophisticated tools become available to help in getting your turntable optimized. I've had my eye on the Shaknspin speed analyzer since it was launched a couple of years ago, and now there's a new Shaknspin2, which promises more accurate results.

Bobo Stenson Trio: Sphere; Kirsten Edkins: Shapes and Sound; Franco Ambrosetti: Nora; Walter Smith III: return to casual.

Alexander Melnikov: Fantasie: 7 Composers, 7 Keyboards; Nielsen: Symphonies 2 (The Four Temperaments) & 6 (Sinfonia semplice); Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major (cadenzas by Jörg Widmann); Fragment from Violin Concerto in C Major; R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra & Debussy: Jeux.