LATEST ADDITIONS

Do you feel you have developed skills for placing speakers in a room, or do you plunk them down, shuffle them around, and hope for the best?

Besides my 20th wedding anniversary and the 15th anniversary of <I>Listener</I> magazine's first issue, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Roksan Audio Ltd., easily one of the most innovative design and manufacturing firms in British audio. Before Roksan came upon the scene in 1985, none of us had ever seen a loudspeaker whose tweeter was isolated from its surroundings by a sprung suspension. Or a commercial phono preamplifier designed to fit <I>inside</I> a turntable, just a centimeter away from the tonearm base. And who among us could have guessed that the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/1103linn">Linn LP12</A>'s hegemony&#151;among flat-earthers, I mean&#151;would be broken by a turntable from outside of Scotland? Yet the Roksan Darius loudspeaker, Artaxerxes phono stage, and, above all, Xerxes turntable accomplished those things and more, to the genuine surprise of nearly everyone&#151;and to the benefit of our industry at large, as other firms took those ideas and ran with them.

Musical Fidelity's Tri-Vista kWP, introduced in 2003, was an impressive, high-tech, "statement" audiophile preamplifier. Its outboard power supply weighed almost 56 lbs&#151;more than most <I>power</I> amplifiers&#151;and its hybrid circuitry included miniature military-grade vacuum tubes. As I said in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/solidpreamps/104mf">my review of it</A> in the January 2004 <I>Stereophile</I>, the kWP's chassis and innards were overbuilt, the measured performance impressive, and any sonic signature imposed on the signal was subtle and, essentially, inconsequential.

<B>Johnny Cash: </I>American VI: Ain't No Grave</I></B><BR>
Lost Highways/American Recordings B0013954-02 (CD). 2010. Rick Rubin, prod.; David Ferguson, eng.; Greg Fidelman, Jimmy Tittle, Paul Fig, Dan Leffler, asst. engs. AAD.? TT: 32:23<BR>
Performance ****&#189;<BR>
Sonics ***&#189;

The Super Deluxe Mega Awesome Edition of the Rolling Stones’ classic <i>Exile On Main Street</i>, considered by some to be the greatest rock and roll album of all time&#151complete with two CDs, including ten previously unreleased tracks, two LPs, a DVD, and a 50-page book&#151is now available. Damn.

Oh, crap. This is good. Recently signed to <a href="http://www.4ad.com/ariel-pinks-haunted-graffiti/">4AD</a&gt;, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti are poised to release <i>Before Today</i>, their first full-length album for the acclaimed indie label, on June 8th. Whee!

I’ve been infatuated with Damien Jurado’s new album, <i>Saint Bartlett</i>, due to be released on May 25th from <a href="http://www.secretlycanadian.com/onesheet.php?cat=SC192">Secretly Canadian</a>. Its twelve songs take us on an emotionally powerful trip, from the drunken sway of “Arkansas” to the jaunty swagger of “Wallingford” to the heavyhearted confessions of “Kansas City.” Altogether, <i>Saint Bartlett</i> is deep and beautiful and addictive.