LATEST ADDITIONS

COPLAND: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Fanfare for the Common Man
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Louis Lane, cond.
Telarc Digital DG-10078 (LP). Robert Woods, prod., Jack Renner, eng. DAA. TT: 44:11.

I predict that this Fanfare for the Common Man will suffer the same fate as the opening measures of Also Sprach Zarathustra. The impact of the opening brass and tympani is stupendous. Even when I know it is coming, I tend to leap from my chair in surprise. All audiophile copies of this disc will become grey and worn on Band One of Side One.

Audiophile impact aside, please don't neglect the other two works on this disc. Both Rodeo and Appalachian Spring receive excellent interpretations, and they too contain sufficient brass and drum to excite a jaded audiophile.

In what may be the first collaboration of its kind, the San Francisco Audiophile Society (SFAS) has partnered with a major urban arts presenter, the SFJAZZ Center, to offer its members a prime block of "audiophile-approved" seats to major SFJAZZ Center events. The instant success of the SFAS Concert Series collaboration is reflected in the fact that all 30 tickets to the first event, a March 1 concert with Taj Mahal, sold out in four hours.

Hats off and heads down. Let Joe Grado's passing fill our collective hearts with enduring feelings of gratitude (for what Joe brought to the quality and character of the audio industry over six decades) and respect (for his myriad inventions and human fortitude that delivered musical joy and aural insights to countless listeners and audio professionals throughout the world).

Are you trying to decide between high-resolution downloads and LP reissues? In the market for a hi-rez portable audio player? A zealot bravely fighting back in the Loudness Wars? Change is inevitable, and in the audiophile world it's the spice that keeps things interesting—there's always a new remastering or idea product just around the corner. Minds and tastes, too, can change. In answer to the eternal question "What are you listening to now?," we present the 2015 edition of "Records to Die For," our annual album of snapshots of the minds and ears of Stereophile's staff.

The more integrated amps I review, the more I want to tell manufacturers: Please, skip the DAC, omit the phono stage, lose the Bluetooth—just give me the best sound quality, and the most vivid, most transparent line stage and control center (with pre-out) you can design. Make sure this line stage has appropriate gain, and high input and low output impedances. Give me at least four balanced and single-ended inputs. Make sure the volume, balance, and tone controls are durable and degrade the sound as little as possible. That way, I can add a DAC, server, phono stage, or Bluetooth, of any quality level, any time I choose.

I wish I'd had a VPI Nomad when I was in college. I was in a fraternity, and for most of my time there I had to rely on others' sound systems to play my music. My sophomore and junior years, some freshmen were rotated through my room, and several of them had nice sound systems and were accommodating about letting me play my music. When I wanted to really crank it up, I visited the stoners, who had the best systems and were happy to spin my collections of King Crimson and ELP, assuming I could get them to stop listening to Jefferson Starship for five minutes (footnote 1).

Readers of Stereophile need no introduction to Bryston, a venerable Canadian electronics manufacturer known for the quality and reliability of its amplifiers and preamplifiers, and for its unique 20-year warranty. In the past few years, Bryston has ventured into digital audio with notable success, producing D/A converters, multichannel preamplifier-processors, and music-file players. While an evolution from analog into digital audio would seem logical, their most recent expansion, into loudspeakers, is more surprising. Apparently, James Tanner, Bryston's vice president, designed a speaker for his own use, and it turned out well enough that the company decided to put it into production.