LATEST ADDITIONS

Forget about tuning dots, mystical poker chips, and clocks with programmed electrons. They're all hopelessly out of date.

Any audiophile who stumbles onto one of the more cantankerous audio newsgroups ("wreck audio opinion," anyone?) may wonder what has happened to the modern breed of audiophiles. One suspects that religious wars pale when compared to how some audio pundits jostle against each other! But over the years, there has <I>always</I> been a wide variety of opinion. For a perspective written decades ago that still holds true today, we present J. Gordon Holt's classic "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//features/104/">Why Hi-Fi Experts Disagree</A>."

History teaches us that the full flowering of any social phenomenon takes place after the seeds of its destruction have been sown. That tourist magnet, London's Buckingham Palace, for example, was built decades after the English Revolution and the Restoration had redefined the role of the British monarchy as being merely titular, and made the elected Parliament the real seat of power.

Call me na&#207;ve, but I thought the Hi-Fi Wars were merely in-house squabbles. Yes, meter-carrying objectivists and wide-eyed subjectivists can carry on worse than Republicans and Democrats in Congress. But I always figured that once someone cues up <I>Dark Side of the Moon</I> or <I>Kind of Blue</I>, the partisanship subsides as we revel in our common passion for music and sound. C'mon, everybody&mdash;group hug! Okay, I exaggerate.

We get requests all the time from readers who want to know what audio components others have purchased. What we're looking for is a description of what loudspeaker products you own and why you like them. Here goes . . .

Accidents and disasters have no sense of good timing, and when they strike have a way of fouling even the most promising love affairs. Case in point: loudspeaker manufacturer <A HREF="http://www.vonschweikert.com/">Von Schweikert Research</A> and the small town of Watertown (pop. 30,000) in northern New York, about three hours' drive from Toronto.

Last week, in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//reference/101/">Book Review: <I>High Fidelity Audio/Video Systems: A Critical Guide for Owners</I></A>, we ran Corey Greenberg's scathing review of an audio book that misses the mark by a wide margin. This week, in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//reference/102/">Book Review: <I>The Complete Guide to High-End Audio</I></A>, we examine a book written by erstwhile <I>Stereophile</I> consulting technical editor Robert Harley. He does not emerge unscathed!