The 2006 edition of the <I>Stereophile Buyer's Guide</I> is out now. Listing the specifications of more than 5000 audio components within its 212 large-format pages, the <I>Buyer's Guide</I> is exclusively concerned with products for <I>music</I> reproduction, as opposed to the bangs, bonks, and battle noises typical of movie soundtracks.
<A HREF="www.filmmusicradio.com">Film Music Radio</A> (FMR), one of the newest outposts in the expanding galaxy of cyberspace music media, emerged from the digital ethers on September 13. The Internet radio station streams film and television soundtracks around the clock, and offers genre-based block programs and unique DJ-hosted specialty shows.
If compact discs are so damned dynamic and vinyl is so dynamically limited, why do they sound just the opposite? Why do LPs sound so "live," so explosive, so "there," and CDs so dead? Even the best CDs usually sink to second-rate when you switch to their vinyl versions. I've heard it, you've heard it. Only those in deep denial, those who refuse to listen, don't. They'd rather read the published specs and consider the actual listening some kind of mass delusion among Luddite LP fans.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but all too often there is little of beauty to be found in high-end audio. In these aesthetic dark ages, we have been indoctrinated to forsake grace and elegance; we all know that every underlying penny should be spent only in the pursuit of superior sonic performance.
First I should clear up what may be an ambiguity in the driver-lineup spec for these speakers. In each system, three 8" cone units serve as woofers. Two of these crossover from the midrange drivers at 100Hz. Crossover to the third 8-incher, the subwoofer, is at 40Hz. Thus, two woofers are active from 100Hz down to 40Hz, and all three are active below 40. In other words, the third woofer does not come into play until the frequency drops to the point where the radiating area of two 8-inchers starts to become inadequate for moving air, at which point the additional area of the third speaker is thrown in. Below 40Hz, all three are working together.
"<I>Digital</I> is superior," proclaims Mr. Alberto Arebalos in February's "Letters." I'm glad <I>that's</I> settled. Still, I'm typing this ten feet from a wall lined with LPs, Don Patterson's <I>Satisfaction!</I> is spinning on the old Systemdek turntable, and my usually cold, drafty Chicago apartment seems like a summer night at the Green Mill Jazz Club. But I agree: digital is superior. What's wrong with me?
Audiophiles obviously aren't the only strange obssessives out there.
Presented by The Toast Council.
Here's the original article by Timothy Holy and Zhongsheng Guo. It includes pitch-shifted samples and acoustical analyses.
Phil Bradley has collected a bunch of resources that will help you solve tons of those nagging little problems you've been having. Good stuff!