LATEST ADDITIONS

Experienced reviewers know that shows are the wrong environments for critical audiophile listening. Convention centers—especially the one at Las Vegas—are huge, cavernous airplane hangers, not the intimate listening rooms reviewers thrive in. Extraneous sounds from subwoofer blasts and the constantly milling crowds leak in to sully the music. Booths set up by manufacturers on the show floor have very thin, flexible walls, and no bass treatment.

It's a common audiophile failing to remember the past as being much better than it actually was. (Though, of course, some things <I>were</I> better.) I remember the first time I heard a pair of Acoustic Research LST loudspeakers, in 1974 or thereabouts. Compared with the Wharfedales I used in my own system and the various Goodmans, Celestions, and home-brews I heard at friends' homes, the sound of classical orchestral recordings on the ARs was about as close to the real thing as I could imagine. And the AR ads reinforced my experience, telling me that musicians such as Herbert von Karajan also used LSTs. I never heard those speakers again, but occasionally I wonder how they would hold up today (footnote 1).

Media conglomerates have long hedged their bets by consulting demographics experts and marketing gurus. Now, music executives have real science to bolster their sometimes unreliable instincts about what will succeed and what will fail. It's an audio analysis program called Hit Song Science (HSS).

The record industry's favorite nonconformist, DualDisc, is getting a modest boost in February and March. Despite hand-wringing and compatibility warnings from scores of manufacturers, all of the major record labels say they plan to release some of the two-faced discs in coming weeks.

In the February issue, <I>Stereophile</I> scribes pen their <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/records2die4/">Records 2 Die 4</A>. Now it's your turn: give us the one or two discs that topped your list in 2004.

First Watt isn't a real company, and the F1 power amplifier isn't a real product. Consequently, this isn't a real review.

Pick an expletive&mdash;one you would normally use to express deep intellectual frustration&mdash;but don't vocalize it. Hold it in reserve for a few minutes, letting it simmer to concentrate its intensity. I'll tell you when to let rip.