LATEST ADDITIONS

I like to stop by <a href="http://theneedledrop.blogspot.com/">The Needle Drop</a>, where usual dude, Anthony Fantano, offers his interesting, thoughtful, and often very funny takes on new music and music technology. Check it out.

The August 2009 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. See that spiffy-looking integrated amplifier/USB DAC thingamajig on the cover? That's the Peachtree Nova. When I was at <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/david_solomon_and_the_peachtr… Exchange</a> a couple of months ago, Novas were just flying off the shelves. Old guys were digging them, young guys were digging them, and girls were digging them, too. Everyone wanted one. Can't blame 'em, really. The Nova offers a lot in a tidy, attractive package. Look at that styling, all retro-modern Eames with its high profile and its real-wood veneer wrapping round those perfect curves!

In 1962, J. Gordon Holt started a magazine based on the simple, beautiful idea that the quality of an audio component should be measured, first and foremost, by how it sounds. That magazine, of course, was Stereophile.

It is with immense sadness that I heard of Gordon's passing, in an announcement from his long-time friend, Bob O'Neill: "A few minutes after 12 noon mtn time, July 20, 2009, J. Gordon Holt passed away in his home in Boulder, Colorado. A memorial service will be held in a week or two. There will be, of course, martinis and the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams." According to his son Charles, Gordon had suffered a long fight with COPD/Emphysema and he died in his home with his family around him.

It could be a foreign country or a big city. Where would you go for the ultimate audiophile vacation and why?

<i>A happy family. The all-new PSB Image Series (from left to right): The B4, B5, and B6 monitors; the T6 and T5 towers; the C4 (top) and C5 center channels; the S5 surround.</i>

I've realized why the opening few moments of Tom Abbs & Frequency Response's "Lost" make me want to just stop and cry. I find those moments so painfully beautiful because they remind me of my grandmother (my mother's mother) singing to me when I was a child. At first, I thought it was "You Are My Sunshine," but now I realize that it's "All the Pretty Horses." Listening again, I wish now I had someone to sing it to, someone to play it for.