LATEST ADDITIONS

It was a certain sunless Sunday afternoon and we were listening to some records at the Brooklyn Navy Yard's <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/112206custom/">DeVore Fidelity factory</a>. Something had just come to an end, and I decided to take a look through a box of LPs to find something new. I found an album that was still sealed in its plastic wrapper. It was the seventh installment of Sonic Youth's SYR series, the album that <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/040808immediately/">started it all for me</a>. I was shocked. <i>Shocked</i>. I was all exclamation points and italics.

She stands in the long and winding Election Day line, a wonder in her cream-colored cotton sweater, black tights, and two-inch heels. Her head is down in Milan Kundera, and somewhere in her mind she sings.

For Halloween, I dressed up as myself: rigid and morose. My costume was a smash at all the parties. However, the Best Costume Award goes to <a href="http://snowghostmusic.com/">SnowGhost Music</a>'s Greg McGrath. Greg dressed up as an MP3. He explained:

At the end of August, we watched as the number of registered users in our online forums quickly ticked past the 10,000 mark. Ten thousand registered users! While it might prove interesting to learn just how that number breaks down into men and women, old and young, subjectivists and objectivists, or any of several other demographic and philosophical divides, that would only obscure the point: In our online forums, there are over 10,000 members who are eager to share their enthusiasm for music and hi-fi. What a beautiful thing!

Can audiences tell the difference between a computer-generated orchestra and the real thing? Just how far have digital sampling and loudspeaker technologies advanced?

Based in the Czech Republic, KR Enterprise is headed by an occasionally gruff Dr. Riccardo Kron and his American-born wife, Eunice, who operate the company out of a partially abandoned factory that was once part of the state-owned Tesla High Vacuum Technology facility in Prague. The Swiss-funded company is unique in that it manufactures both amplifiers <I>and</I> the tubes that power them. KR's tubes have found favor with other amplifier makers as well&#151;especially the 300BXS, electrically identical to a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/229">standard 300B</A> but rated at 25W in class-A.

Andrew Hill, the knotty avant-garde pianist, and Chico Hamilton, the boisterous polyrhythmic drummer, seem an unlikely pair at first (or second) glance. But they set off fascinating fireworks, and carved out sinuous jags of common ground, in a duet recording, <I>Dreams Come True</I>, just released on Joyous Shout!, an Indiana-based label that I’ve never heard of. (Its website seems to be a sort of shrine to Chico Hamilton merchandise.)