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The SC-I ($995/pair) is the smallest model in the "Signature Collection" to come from Dunlavy Audio Labs, the company founded by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/163">John Dunlavy</A> after he left Duntech. The largest model in this series used to be the $4995/pair SC-IV that Robert Deutsch so enthusiastically reviewed last April, and that this month was voted <I>Stereophile</I>'s 1994 "Product of the Year." There is now also a huge <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/162">SC-VI</A&gt; available.

The <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/phonocartridges/ortofon_mc-2000_mc_phono_car… MC-2000</A> may just have been the most impractical cartridge to be unleashed upon the audio community for some years. With a high compliance (20cu) that made it ill-suited for most tonearms, it also had a preposterously low signal output of 50 microvolts, which gave new meaning to the terms hum and noise. Few MC preamps had enough gain to deliver adequate driving voltage to a system, and none of those that did had low enough noise to be usable with the 2000. If the problem wasn't hum, it was hiss; if hiss was acceptably low, there would be too much hum. At least Ortofon had the sense to be aware of the problem and to do something about it, in the form of their T-2000 step-up transformer, which is the only device I ever found that would allow the cartridge to be operated without a constant background of hum or hiss. Despite all this, I have used the MC-2000 as my reference cartridge for the last two years. Why? Because of all the cartridges I've tried, it is by far the most accurate.

The 2006 Grammy nominations are in, and audiophiles have much to rejoice about. In a year when far too many pundits are sounding the death knell for the CD in general and high-resolution formats in particular, there's a bumper crop of great sounding, high quality recordings vying for a listen.

Record industry policy, when it comes to digital downloads, has always been to give the consumers what it wants them to have: files that may, but probably won't, work in all of their purchasers' devices.

"You trip him and I'll steal his wallet and we can trot on down to Petland for kibble."

Of Saturn!