LATEST ADDITIONS

Getting the right components is half the battle. The other half is setting them up for maximum effect. How much time did you spend placing your loudspeakers?

I was walking through the woods one day when I happened on a large, flat rock near the base of an old ash tree. Conditioned as I am from such rambles with my daughter, whose interest in wildlife echoes that of my own childhood, I bent down and lifted one end of the rock, hoping to catch a glimpse of some exotic creature or another: perhaps a delicate ring-necked snake, or a plasticky-looking red eft. The rock came loose without too much effort and teetered on its broadest edge, but before I could let it flip to one side, I recoiled in horror: There, amid the millipedes and ant larvae, was a cluster of teeny-tiny, nasty-looking old men, writhing in such a tangle that I couldn't even count them. They were bespectacled, to a one, and mostly bald—I could tell quite easily, despite the berets worn by some of them—and each pair of feet was shod in a teeny-tiny pair of off-brand Birkenstock copies, with thin, shiny black socks underneath.

Sometimes, I think life would be easier if I were an audio customer. If I didn't have to wait on the priorities of the electronics companies, I might have gone out and bought a Blu-ray player months ago. Had I done so, I would have been shocked to find that almost all BD players are released with fewer than the advertised number of features, and sometimes require firmware updates—sometimes even a return to the manufacturer—to have them installed.

Remember my friend, Eden? The one with <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/project_sapphire_at_the_end_o… amazing apartment</a> and the Sota Sapphire? I visited her the other day. Slowly, so slowly, we're revitalizing the old turntable. Getting her ready to spin again. Getting her ready to sing again.

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At its best, there’s a quiet majesty to the music of Abdullah Ibrahim, the South African pianist-composer once known as Dollar Brand, and his new solo CD, <I>Senzo</I> (on the German WDR label’s Cologne Broadcasts series), is his most stirring album in years. He was discovered in 1963, at the age of 30, by no less than Duke Ellington, who produced his first recording, then lured him to the States, where he played with Elvin Jones before going on to form his own bands. In the ‘70s, he found his full voice—a swaying pastiche of jazz, spiritual and Capetown rhythms—and, over the course of a few years, recorded a staggering number of great albums: <I>Live at Sweet Basil, Vol. 1</I> (there was no Vol. 2) and <I>Duke’s Memories</I> with the saxophonist Carlos Ward, Good <I>News from Africa</I> with the bassist Johnny Dyani, <I>Streams of Consciousness</I> with drummer Max Roach, <I>Duet</I> with saxophonist Archie Shepp (the most lyrical album Shepp ever made), and <I>African Marketplace</I>, <I>The Mountain</I>, and <I>Ekaya</I> with his octet known as Ekaya.

Al Stiefel, 66, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, died suddenly and unexpectedly in Denver on January 27. His wife of 22 years, RMAF mainstay Marjorie Baumert, was at his side.