LATEST ADDITIONS

For many years one of my most beloved guilty pleasures has been reading George MacDonald Frasier's books. Not just the Flashman Papers, which I have found delightful and from which I have learned a lot of 19<SUP>th</SUP> century history, but also his McAusland novels, his <I>Mr. American</I>,his spirited adventure novel <I>Candlemass Road</I> (which, at a taut 181 pages, is one of the finest examples of economical action writing ever), and his masterful history of the Scottish boarder wars, <I>The Steel Bonnets</I>.

A few days ago, <I>Stereophile</I> reader Bill Taylor wrote, "I was just strolling down memory lane and took a look at the Adcom website...they just merged with Emerson."

The Ohm Walsh 5 displaces the Ohm F at the top of the Ohm line, and the current Walsh 5 production run represents a "limited edition" of 500 pairs worldwide. There's even a certificate of authenticity&mdash;hand-signed by Ohm Acoustics President John Strohbeen&mdash;packed with the speakers that makes it all official. I think that this is more than a clever marketing gesture and clearly demonstrates Ohm Acoustics' pride in their new flagship loudspeaker.

<B>NEIL YOUNG: <I>Chrome Dreams II</I></B><BR>
Reprise 311932-2 (CD). 2007. Neil Young, prod.; Niko Bolas, prod., eng.; John Hausmann, Rob Clark, Brent Walton, Tim McColm, Colin Suzuki, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 66:17<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****

In my last blog, I referred to “my friend, the pianist Frank Kimbrough,” so some of you may be leery when I tell you in this entry that Kimbrough’s new CD, and his first solo work, <I>Air</I> (on Palmetto Records), is a terrific piece of work, one of the half-dozen or so great solo piano albums of the past few years. If your suspicions keep you from checking it out, well, your loss.

As I wrote in this space last month, test-equipment manufacturer Audio Precision has loaned Stereophile a sample of their top-of-the-line SYS2722 system, which has both significantly greater resolution and greater bandwidth than the Audio Precision System One Dual Domain we have been using since 1989. The reviews you can read in this issue include the first measurements I have performed with this impressive piece of gear, though there are still a number of graphs I produced using our System One. In fact, with the equipment I tested using the SYS2722, I performed duplicate sets of measurements using both the System One and the Miller Audio Research QC Suite in order to get a handle on how close the three systems agreed. (They did on the tests where the SYS2722's improved resolution was not a factor.)

The shoes are now dropping all over the place. We have previously reported that Warner Music Group had dropped DRM on its downloads, <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/123107warner/">joining</A&gt; Amazon.com's Download store. Ten days ago, we also reported that Sony BMG had announced <I>it</I> was <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/010508sonybmg/">dropping DRM</A>, although it declined to release any distribution details at the time.