LATEST ADDITIONS

<B>P&#196;RT: <I>Fratres</I></B><BR> <I>Fratres</I> for strings & percussion; <I>Fratres</I> for violin, strings, & percussion; <I>Fratres</I> for wind octet & percussion; <I>Fratres</I> for eight cellos; <I>Fratres</I> for strings; <I>Fratres</I> for string quartet; <I>Fratres</I> for cello & piano. Plus: <I>Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten</I>, <I>Summa</I>, <I>Festina Lente</I><BR>Rudolf Werthen, I Fiamminghi (The Orchestra of Flanders)<BR> Telarc CD-80387 (CD only). James Mallinson, prod.; Jack Renner, Tony Faulkner, engs. DDD. TT: 79:00

For those of us who have succumbed to the enticements of surround-sound for music, Audio Research's SDP1 is both vindication and cause for rejoicing: vindication because surround-sound's acceptance by such an ultraconservative, uncompromising company as ARC will give it a respectability in the high-end community that it never enjoyed before, and cause for rejoicing because someone has finally done music surround right.

As mentioned by two readers in this month's "Letters," amplifiers are used to drive loudspeakers but are almost exclusively measured into resistive loads. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) real loudspeakers both produce neighbor-annoying sound levels and tend to break when driven with typical amplifier test signals; and 2) the question as to which "standard" loudspeaker should be used is impossible to answer---at least the conventional resistive loads are consistent and repeatable.

The D-250 is the flagship of Audio Research's power amplifier range and, at 250 watts per channel, is the most powerful all-tube stereo amplifier currently available in the US. Under the circumstances, then, it is not surprising that it should also be one of the heaviest and largest.

The $395 NAIT, rated at 20Wpc, is a good-sounding little amp. It's very open and spacious-sounding, but, like the $250 Rotel RA-820BX, sometimes sounds a little hard in the upper registers.

I remember having a conversation with an audiophile some time ago about the thorny subject of choosing an amplifier. He was convinced, on the basis of an article he had read in <I>Stereo Review</I>, that all amplifiers of a given power rating sound pretty much the same. Although he was sufficiently well off to buy just about anything on the market, he didn't want to waste his money. He chose the amplifier for his system by going through the <I>Audio</I> Annual Directory Issue, calculating the price:watt ratio for each amplifier that was listed, and then bought the amplifier with the lowest price/watt figure that had enough power to drive his speakers. He didn't do any comparative listening and didn't consider buying anything that cost more for the same power, because he knew already that it wouldn't sound any different.