What's the best audio deal out there?
Readers often complain that high-end audio products are priced too high for the typical enthusiast to afford. But good audiophile gear does exist. In your opinion, what's the best audio deal out there?
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2005 Records To Die For
Last year, during a particularly painful moving experience, I had the opportunity to reflect in a very personal way on the virtues of our annual "Records To Die For" feature.
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Sonic Euphoria PLC passive line stage
Life used to be simple. A preamp was a phono stage, a line stage, and the controls necessary to manage a system. Sure, there were exceptions, but for the most part you could say "preamp" and everyone knew what you meant. With the rise of the Compact Disc, however, phono stages became standalone components or optional extras, and most manufacturers concentrated on the line stage and controls, pursuing the ideal of "a straight wire with gain."
Listening #37
There was once an Englishman named H.A. Hartley, who was a contemporary of H.G. Baerwald, P.G. Voigt, P.K. Turner, and other men whose first two names are lost to us. Hartley was a capable designer and audio theorist, not to mention a gifted lecturer and writer—his literary achievements include a book on astrology (footnote 1), of all things—and he's often credited with coining the expression <I>high fidelity</I>. Most important of all, in 1928 H.A. Hartley teamed up with the aforementioned P.K. Turner to create an audio manufacturing company known as Hartley Products, Ltd. The Hartley company made electronics and loudspeakers, the latter of which included full-range coaxial drivers using energized field coils and, later on, quite powerful permanent magnets—just like their countrymen at Lowther Loudspeakers, Ltd.
Music in the Round #16
In September 2005, for the first time, I attended the Expo of the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA), in Indianapolis. Although I saw many familiar faces and companies, it was apparent that the event was dominated by a spirit very different from the one that pervades this magazine or the high-end exhibitions at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). That spirit, however, does suffuse the rest of CES, and is well represented at Primedia's own Home Entertainment shows. That spirit encompasses video, and a view of audio that differs significantly from that of traditional audiophiles. Multichannel surround sound is taken as read, and novel technologies are prized higher than the proverbial "straight wire with gain."
Industry Update
<I>Burmester</I>: <A HREF="http://www.burmester.de/">Burmester Audio Systems</A> has a new distributor, Soundquest LLC, which has been distributing <A HREF="http://www.audiophysic.com/">Audio Physic</A> for some time. Tel: (212) 731-0729. Fax: (212) 731-0730.
Did an iPod Scuttle the Flag?
As we reported <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/012306fairuse/">last week</A>, the Senate Commerce Committee (SCC) held hearings on January 24 exploring regulations to insert "Broadcast Flags" and "Audio Flags" into broadcast signals and audio recordings—markers that would prevent electronic devices from recording the flagged material. What we did not anticipate last week was that the hearings would trigger an outpouring of common sense.
Bagheera Works It
She totally pwns the Cat-Dancer.
Lending a Helping Huck
Huckleberry personally inspects every box before it leaves <I>mi casa</I>.
Chicken CacciaTora Tora Tora
Or should it be <I>Coq au Blam</I>? Some recipes make life a lot more interesting than others.