One or Two Wonderfully Musical, Etcetera
My mind is filled with audio components. I guess that's <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051407leland/">what a show does to you</a>.
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How Illegal Immigration Was Born
"The Chinese Exclusion Act and its subsequent extensions altered the legal definition of American citizenship far more than its original drafters could have foreseen."
How to Become a Writer
The long, though not particularly hard, way. Good lessons—presented realistically for a change.
I'm a Bad Boy
I probably shouldn't be linking to this, but it really made me laugh.
Rules of Engagement
John Laurence spent a year embedded with the 101<SUP>st</SUP> Airborne. He respected and liked the guys he was reporting on, but what happened when his duty conflicted with the culture of loyalty?
What musician, from the past or present, would you want to find in the seat next to you on a six-hour plane flight?
Let's say you're flying on a plane for six hours. What musician, from the past or present, would you want to find in the seat next to you?
Steinway and Peter Lyngdorf Create Monumental System
It's not that we're jaded, but most mornings as we open the day's press releases, we manage to curb our enthusiasm as we read of the breakthroughs <I>du jour</I>. Yet, when we read that Steinway & Sons and Peter Lyngdorf had collaborated (as Steinway Lyngdorf) on a $150,000 "Steinway & Sons Model-D Music System," we knew we had to hear it.
John Morgan Eargle: 1931–2007
On May 10, members of several pro audio Internet bulletin boards read the following post from Gary Margolis: "It is with great sadness that I inform you that John Eargle, one of the finest audio engineers and teachers it's been my privilege to know, has passed away.
Amazon Launches DRM-Free MP3 Downloads
On May 16, Amazon.com announced that it would launch an online digital music store "later this year" offering "millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels." EMI, which recently announced that it would partner with the iTunes Media Store to release premium DRM-free MP3 downloads there, "is the latest addition to the store." Amazon claims that every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively as unfettered MP3 files.
PSB Alpha B1 loudspeaker
When audiophiles speak of the "Golden Age" of audio components, they almost always are talking about amplifiers and preamplifiers, not loudspeakers. While a very few speaker models have stood the test of time—among them the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/361">BBC LS3/5a</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/914">Vandersteen 2</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/706listening">original Quad electrostatic</A> and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/416">Quad ESL-63</A>, some of the Magnepans, and the Klipschorn—almost no one would disagree that, taken en masse, the speakers of today outperform not just those of the 1960s and 1970s but even those of the 1980s and 1990s. The advent of low-cost, computerized test equipment, high-quality, inexpensive measuring microphones, and persuasive research into what measured parameters matter most to listeners who are listening for a neutral-sounding, uncolored loudspeaker (footnote 1), has led to an almost across-the-board improvement in speaker sound quality (footnote 2).