LATEST ADDITIONS

My annual piece on the Best Jazz Albums of the Year appears in today&rsquo;s edition of <I>Slate</I> (for which I write a regular column, though usually on foreign and military policy). This time, I also drew up two lists of the Best Jazz Albums of the Decade&mdash;one for new recordings, the other for previously unreleased historical recordings (treasure troves of which were excavated this past 10 years). Readers of this blog may recall reading about most of these albums in this space.

The venerable British company ATC Loudspeaker Technology was founded in 1974 by Billy Woodman, and is famous within the professional community for developing the first soft-dome midrange driver, and for their well-regarded line of active (powered) studio monitors, the user list of which is a veritable <I>Who's Who</I> of mastering engineers. ATC loudspeakers are all still made in the UK, and were a favorite of the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/j_gordon_holt_19301502009">J. Gordon Holt</A>.

It's now 10 years since the launch of the two high-resolution audio disc formats, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/164">SACD</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1099awsi">DVD-Audio</A&gt;. Yet, perhaps partly because both were <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/257">hobbled in various ways</A> to please the record industry, perhaps partly because too many supposed hi-rez releases sounded no better than CD, and perhaps partly because record retailers weren't sure how to display the formats to their best advantage, neither took off in any substantive way. DVD-A disappeared, and SACD survived only as a niche format for high-quality classical releases in both two- and multichannel forms. As we got deeper into the same decade, digital technology, despite various sparks and flashes, went into the doldrums. Mainstream digital technology was increasingly concerned with squashing the music into fewer and more portable bits, not with increased sound quality. Even the concept of "CD sound quality" began to seem an unattainable goal, as <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd">MP3 files</A> became the dominant music carrier.

Though the January 2010 issue of Stereophile will be hitting newsstands before the holidays, this is nominally the last issue of 2009. But already in October, on my return flight from Denver to New York following this year's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, it struck me that 2009 had not been a good year for the world of high-end audio. Yes, the worldwide recession has bit deep into the economic health of audio manufacturers and retailers, but in the past 12 months too many of those who have helped make our hobby great, and have helped promote our shared passion for listening to music with as high a quality as possible, have breathed their last.

Distribution and format chaos may reign, but the music prevails. What is your pick for <I>new</I> album of 2009 (no reissues please)?

Oh yeah: <a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/12/09/this-christmas-just-g… having a holiday sale.

A few things: