LATEST ADDITIONS

Until 2006, <I>Stereophile</I> covered audio Shows in the print magazine, usually between three and five months after the event. In 2006, its Show coverage was published almost entirely on this website, live during the Shows. (See, for example, our <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2006/">report from this weekend's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.</A>) Do you appreciate this change in policy and if you had to choose, which do you prefer: delayed coverage in the print magazine or live website coverage?

As mentioned in the <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2006/102006welcome/">introductory post</A> to this blog, Peter "PJay" Smith (above), Bob Cordell, and Darren Kuzma presented gratis "Amplifier and Loudspeaker Listening and Measurement" clinics throughout the show. One of the clinics, which I was unable to attend, interpreted amplifier measurement data supplied by <I>Stereophile</I>'s John Atkinson.

My <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2006/102206acoustic/">photo of the system</A> in the Acoustic Sounds room featured the Manley Labs Snapper monoblock amplifiers. This was the system front-end, comprising (from top to bottom): Funk Firm Vector Turntable with MK3 tonearm and Lyra Dorian phono cartridge; Sutherland Direct Line Stage; Sutherland's new battery-powered Ph3D phono preamp; and Silver Circle Audio Pure Power One 5.0 power transformer. Rack is the Symposium Acoustics Isis.

I began my Sunday in the Nordost room on the Tower mezzanine. Familiar with the sound of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/cables/1101nordost/">Nordost Valhalla</A> interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables in my reference system, as well as the benefits of the Nordost Thor power distribution center that I have for review in another publication (and will not be returning), I was wondering how they would sound powering completely different components.

Logitech International, the Swiss computer'n'communications peripherals manufacturer, announced on October 19 that it had acquired Slim Devices, Inc., the home-network-music-systems pioneer that manufactures the <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/906slim/">Squeezebox</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/073106transporter/">Transporter</A&gt;.

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that an audiophile in possession of a good hi-fi must be in want of room treatment. The problem, most audiophiles agree, is that said treatment tends to be expensive, big, and fugly. Nucore Technologies, Inc. of Hillsborough, TN and RealTraps of New Milford, CT have some innovative new solutions.

Having read and heard copious praise of the two-chassis Metronome T2i-Signature CD player ($20,600), at times accompanied by claims that it can make CDs sound as good as SACDs reproduced in two-channel mode, I was eager to hear the new one-piece Metronome CD5-Signature player, distributed in the US by Jim Ricketts of tmh audio (above). The CD5-Signature, whose somewhat plain Jane appearance conceals both a tube output stage and variable volume control that can obviate the need for a preamp, retails for a "mere" $18,000. Introduced at the RMAF, it was powered by borrowed-at-the-last-minute Boulder monoblocks feeding Zerobox 109 loudspeakers (40Hz&ndash;35kHz response for $7500/pair) via Xindak cabling.