<B>GUY CLARK: <I>Keepers</I></B><BR> Sugar Hill SHCD-1055 (CD). 1997. Guy Clark, prod.; Miles Wilkinson, prod., eng.; Johnny Rosen, eng. AAD? TT: 64:45<BR> Performance <B>****½</B><BR> Sonics <B>*****</B></FONT>
Compuserve's CEAUDIO forum has been buzzing in recent weeks about audio cables. The subject even spilled over into an April meeting of the New York chapter of the Audio Engineering Society (see Wes Phillips's report in this month's "Industry Update"). Nearly two decades after Polk, Fulton, and Monster Cable raised our collective consciousness about the differences cable choice can make in an audio system, the debate still rages between audiophiles and some members of the engineering community. "High-priced tone controls" is how some engineers dismiss the subject of cables, while admitting that they <I>can</I> sound different. Other engineers adopt the "Hard Objectivist" line that if there are differences to be heard between cables, differences in the lumped electrical parameters of resistance (R), inductance (L), and capacitance (C) are all that are required to explain such differences.
At last—a CD player from a company that doesn't like CD.
A science-fiction parable I read too many years ago to remember who wrote it used the image of a glass jar stuffed with colored plastic spheres. The story's protagonist was asked whether the glass was full. "Of course," was his reply, whereupon a hidden faucet was turned, the jar filled up with water, and fish swam in the spaces between the balls.
During the late 1950s, when high fidelity exploded into a multimillion-dollar industry, product advertisements bragged about bringing the orchestra into your living room. Apparently, no one realized what an absurd concept it was, but there are still many people today who believe that's what audio is all about. It isn't. There is no way a real orchestra could fit into the average living room, and if it could, we would not want to be around when it played. Sound levels of 115dB are just too loud for most sane people, and that's what a full orchestral <I>fortissimo</I> can produce in a small room.
<B>BEETHOVEN: <I>The String Quartets</I></B><BR> Emerson String Quartet<BR> Eugene Drucker, 1st violin, Philip Setzer, 1st violin, Lawrence Dutton, viola, David Finckel, cello.<BR> DG, 447 075-2. (7 CDs). 1997. Alison Ames and Roger Wright, exec. prods; Max Wilcox, prod.; Nelson Wong, eng. DDD. TT: 8:18:02.<BR> Music: <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics: <B>*****</B>
In last month's "As We See It," I examined how I decide upon ratings in <I>Stereophile</I>'s biannual "Recommended Components" listing. This leads me to talk about who writes our equipment reports. <I>Stereophile</I> currently has a team of 16 active reviewers. The core are professional: J. Gordon Holt, Robert Harley, Thomas J. Norton, Corey Greenberg, and Martin Colloms. The others—Sam Tellig, Jack English, Robert Deutsch, Don Scott, Jonathan Scull, Larry Greenhill, Dick Olsher, Guy Lemcoe, Lewis Lipnick, and Steven Stone—may be enthusiastic amateurs, but they are amateurs only in the sense that they don't earn their livings from writing. I'm the team's catcher, both calling the game and keeping the stray balls from getting away. Why, then, is it this cast of characters (footnote 1) who gets to cast judgments in stone in my magazine?
"Wow! What's that</I>?" asked the pizza delivery boy, peering over my shoulder at the slender, 5'-tall Martin-Logan SL3 visible behind me.
<I>"Everyone I know used to sit in front of the stereo and listen to music...Now no one I know, except for us lunatics, listens to music the way one would watch a movie on TV."</I>—from The Audiophile Network
<B>SON VOLT: <I>Straightaway</I></B><BR> Warner Bros. 46518-2 (CD). 1997. Brian Paulson, Son Volt, prods. TT: 40:27<BR> Music: <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics: <B>*****</B>