LATEST ADDITIONS

Some days I feel like <I>Stereophile</I>'s designated audio antichrist. After all, I wrote an automotive audio column for the magazine about 10 years back&mdash;a feature that prompted more than one reader to send the pages carrying my column back to Santa Fe as "not what I subscribed for"&mdash;<I>and</I> I reviewed the <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/ ">iPod</A>. So, not really being a glutton for punishment, I wasn't wildly enthusiastic when Edelman account executive Stefani Gudis tendered an invitation to hear the Infiniti/Bose "Studio On Wheels" model G35 sedan. It wasn't that I didn't think that car audio could be a valid musical experience, I simply had been disappointed too many times by car manufacturers touting "audiophile" sound packages, which, upon examination, were probably more about preventing aftermarket add-ons by car audio installers. BTDT, as the kids text-message.

Even though the European Commission okayed the merger of Sony and the Bertlesmann Music Group (BMG) in 2004, Europe's second-highest court&mdash;the Court of First Instance&mdash;annulled the merger on July 13. The decision came about because of a challenge from independent record labels that claimed the EU regulators shouldn't have approved the merger in the first place. This is the first time a European Commission decision has been overturned and it requires the commission to examine the complex merger again.

Answer this one at your own risk: If you had to choose, which would you dump, your spouse or your audio system?

Record playback could have been designed to go from the inside out instead of the other way around. With most pieces of music ending louder than they started, doesn't it make more sense to end the side at the widest circumference, longest wavelength, least congested part of the groove spiral? Compact discs read from the center hole out, and they don't even have to.

High-end audio is not a rational construct. It is a sensory experience that leads to emotional engagement. In slightly different words: High-end audio is not about a <I>concept</I>, but about the <I>experience</I> of having our emotions engaged. The difference between reading about a high-end audio system and hearing great recordings played on one is almost as big as the difference between reading a love poem and falling in love.

<B>MAHLER: Symphony 8</B><BR>
Barbara Kubiak, Izabela Klosinska, Marta Boberska, sopranos; Jadwiga Rapp&#233;, Ewa Marciniec, altos; Timothy Bentch, tenor; Wojtek Drabowicz, baritone; Piotr Nowacki, bass; Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Polish Radio Choir in Krakow, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University Choir, Warsaw Boys Choir; Antoni Wit, conductor<BR>
Naxos 8.550533-34 (2 CDs). 2006. Andrzej Sasin, Aleksandra Nagorko, prods. DDD. TT: 80:51<BR>
Performance *****<BR>
Sonics *****

This blog has been taken over by the evil genius Huckleberry T. Cat and will no longer parrot the pro-human party line of Wes Phillips <I>et al</I>.