Regular readers of this here blog may wonder why I've linked so many times to maps of the London Underground. I've always loved the clean design of Harry Beck's 1933 map because it looks so much like a circuit diagram and conveys complex three-dimensional information so clearly in 2D.
Leon Bambrick's guitar tutorial eliminates all the boring parts. You don't even learn to tune until lesson five—and then it goes like this:
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"Buy a tuner and ask your girlfriend to learn how to use it. If you can't afford either of these then ask either a roadie or the band playing after you to tune the guitar for you."
Sean O'Hagan makes some mix tapes and laments the lost art of the sleeve note.
CD sales are sliding, and the download market is still up for grabs. If you ran a major record label, what would be your next move?
We reported in 2005 on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/082205riaa/">lawsuit against Patricia Santangelo</A> and her suit in response to the trade group's allegations that she had participated in peer-to-peer file sharing. The record companies dropped their legal actions against Ms. Santangelo in December 2006, instead deciding to charge two of her children, Robert (16) and Michelle (20), with downloading songs from Kazaa.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has issued a <A HREF="http://www.ce.org/shared_files/edm/2007/PolicyPapers/HomeRecording.pdf"… paper</A> on consumer recording rights, which it expects to be a "key issue in 2007." The CEA's position, in brief: "We urge Congress to refrain from limiting fair use and encourage market-based solutions to home recording and digital rights management issues."
California company Now Hear This (NHT), which has been around since 1986, has always taken a no-nonsense route based on good engineering principles and innovative thinking. Two of their strikingly good ideas were the use of side-firing woofers, and integrating an active subwoofer with a pair of small monitor speakers. Both philosophies culminated in the Xd series of DSP-EQ'd active loudspeakers, which I had the pleasure of <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/1105nht">reviewing</A> in the November 2005 issue. My first reaction to the concept was "Why hasn't anyone done this before?" The results completely justified an approach that, I believe, points loudspeaker design in a new direction.
Thiel Audio, headed up by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/221">Jim Thiel</A> (President and chief designer) and Kathy Gornik (Marketing Director), sets itself apart from other speaker manufacturers not only by making what I feel to be almost uniformly excellent products, but also by serving as a kind of hallmark for the good dealer: Although not all good dealers sell Thiel, just about every Thiel dealer is a good one. This comes about because, in spite of just about uniformly positive reviews and excellent customer relations, Thiel (primarily in the person of Ms. Gornik) has insisted on limited distribution through retailers they know will give their product a good demonstration. There are a few other such companies performing this hallmark function, though only Mark Levinson Audio Systems readily comes to mind. Most other successful companies prefer as wide a geographical distribution as possible, in spite of the occasional necessary compromises in dealer quality.
This product is a pre-trol. What, you may well ask, is a "pre-trol?" Well, Threshold Corp. calls its FET-10 a preamplifier, but it isn't, really. In fact, it isn't an It at all; it's a Them. Only half of Them is a preamp, and you can buy each half separately. If that sounds a little confusing, maybe it's because some of the old, familiar language of audio is starting to lose its relevance.
Klyne Audio Arts has an almost Zen-like approach to the design of its products. Like the best Japanese designs, Klyne's preamps are aesthetically pleasing in appearance, do exactly what they're supposed to, and their controls are not only where you would expect them to be, but have an almost sensually smooth action. Internal construction, too, is a work of art—the kind of design which, transferred to a tapestry, would grace the wall of any listening room. You have to see the insides of a Klyne preamp to appreciate how attractive-looking an audio component can be. But physical beauty is only one aspect of Stan Klyne's designs; of all the electronics manufacturers I know of, Klyne Audio Arts also makes products more adjustable than any others, so as to appeal to the needs of what I call compulsive tweaks.