LATEST ADDITIONS

Dear Stephen,<br>
You probably will be cleaning records over the long holiday weekend, as your cleaning machine was shipped today.

Part of the problem is that I'm almost always thinking about what I should, or could, be writing here on the blog. I'll be in the shower, thinking: "Man, I haven't written anything <i>good</i> lately. Haven't written anything that's inspired discussion. Maybe, today, I'll write about my father and how his alcoholism relates to speaker cables…."

The conventional wisdom in publishing is that magazines are dependent on scoops&mdash;that getting the news out to the readers first is of primary importance. Yes, being timely with what it has to say is important for any publication. But soon after I joined <I>Stereophile</I> in 1986, a series of negative experiences with review samples that were little better than prototypes led me to rethink the need for scoops. As a result, I decided to impose restrictions on what we chose to review; this would allow us to focus the magazine's review resources on products that were out of beta testing and were ready for prime time, and, most important, would be representative of what our readers could audition for themselves at specialty retailers, confident in the knowledge that what they heard would be what we had reviewed.

One of the first affordable loudspeakers I reviewed for <I>Stereophile</I> was the original <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standspeakers/628">Paradigm Reference Studio/20</A> bookshelf model, in the February 1998 issue (Vol.21 No.2). At the time, I felt that the $650/pair speaker was a breakthrough&mdash;although not completely devoid of colorations, its ratio of price to performance set a benchmark a decade ago. I kept the Studio/20s around for several years to compare with other bookshelf speakers I reviewed, and they remained listed in <I>Stereophile</I>'s "Recommended Components" for several years after that. The Studio/20 is now in its fourth (v.4) iteration, so I thought I'd grab a pair to hear how they compared with current affordable bookshelf designs.

Her name was E. and the gentle quaver in her soft voice gave me the impression that she was nervous, anxious, young. Something about it seemed sweet, seemed sincere. Which made me want to help her more. She was calling from England, and the connection was crystal clear. I could hear her perfectly, though she was so far away. She was doing research on the high end hi-fi industry.

"So how many records did you buy last night?" Elizabeth asked me.

Alon Wolf can be mesmerizing. When the founder of Magico gets going on one of his favorite subjects, loudspeaker design, the strength of his convictions, depth of technical knowledge, and sureness of response are enough to hush many a skeptic into silence.