LATEST ADDITIONS

When the Greek poet Hesiod and Roman comic dramatist Plautus wrote about moderation in all things, I'm not sure they had in mind RMAF's Saturday morning seminar, "High Resolution Audio: Have files Eclipsed Physical Media?" Nor, in fact, did I…

Each year, in honor and remembrance of her late husband and RMAF founder, Al Stiefel, Marjorie Baumert donates one exhibit room to support "a new manufacturer with an innovative product, or one who simply needs a little help"…

When unquestionably fine components were given sufficient room to strut their stuff, as happened when the new Wilson Audio Alexia Series 2 loudspeaker was mated with Constellation Audio electronics, the results were often magical.

Dear reader, please stop for a second to imagine how I could go from the above-mentioned MSB room to the $500 setup without feeling pain.

High fidelity took a giant step forward in 1956 with Peter Walker's introduction of the Quad ESL. Walker's research efforts had been motivated by his firm belief in the superiority of the electrostatic dipole over the box loudspeaker, but actually to take the economic plunge and market such a speaker was surely an act of bravery. After all, those were the pre-stereo, pre-audiophile days of the mid '50s, and the public's tastes and expectations were relatively unsophisticated. The average front end was abominable by today's standards, so that making definitive assessments of loudspeaker quality was a difficult task at best.

Fortunately, in a world of darkness, there is still light. And by light, I mean: hi-fi.

To paraphrase a classic early English song by Thomas Arne, “Where the big boys go, there go I.” Thus to the Marriott’s lobby and mezzanine, where many of the biggest systems found spaces congenial to their size, didst I head.