LATEST ADDITIONS

September 1997 saw the 35th anniversary of Stereophile magazine, founded by J. Gordon Holt back in 1962. If any interview needs no introduction, this is it. My interview with Gordon was conducted around the kitchen table in Gordon's Boulder, Colorado home over a couple of cold beers. It seemed appropriate to start at the very beginning...
J. Gordon Holt: I don't remember when that was.

A musical highlight for us at <I>Stereophile</I> in 1995 was the opportunity to record several concerts at the world-famous Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The result was a <I>Stereophile</I> CD, <A HREF="https://secure.stereophile.com/stereophile/recordings.shtml"><I>Festiva…; (STPH007-2), which features the original chamber version of Aaron Copland's <I>Appalachian Spring</I>, Darius Milhaud's jazz-inspired <I>La cr&#233;ation du monde</I>, and the premiere recording of the 1995 Festival commission, Tomiko Kohjiba's <I>The Transmigration of the Soul</I> (see <I>Stereophile</I>, January 1996, Vol.19 No.1, p.132). We were pleased, therefore, to be asked back by the Festival in 1996. Once again we have produced a CD of live recordings, <I>Serenade</I> (STPH009-2), which features chamber works by Mozart, Brahms, and Dvor&#225;k.

Pollock, Rothko, Amperex, and Sylvania? Last spring I went to a contemporary art show out on Chicago's Navy Pier. I wanted to get away from things with wires and knobs&mdash;you know, rub elbows with Chicago's better-dressed, sip some wine, maybe practice talking about artistic creations that I usually don't understand ("It's so brutally honest...yet, somehow, still deceptive"). But there's no rest for the weary, confused audiophile. Along with artists, paintings, and sculptures from all over the world, thousands of vacuum tubes had descended on the Pier.

<B>EMMYLOU HARRIS: <I>Portraits</I></B><BR> Reprise Archives 45308-2 (3 CDs only). Gregg Geller, prod.; Keith Blake, eng.; Jo Motta, project coordinator. 1996. TT: 3:42:11

An equipment reviewer for one of the consumer hi-fi magazines once confided to a manufacturer that he found it hard to like electrostatics because of the kind of people who usually like electrostatics. His implication—that certain kinds of people gravitate towards certain kinds of sound—is an interesting thought, and one that might bear some further investigation. But there is no questioning the fact that electrostatic speakers in general do have a particular kind of sound, that might be characterized as "polite."

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! And all was light. &mdash;<B>Alexander Pope</B>

It takes more than passing courage to make another assault on building the world's best tube preamplifier. You face stiff competition from well-established firms like Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, and Counterpoint. Such units can't be made inexpensively, and you face the steadily growing problem of tube supply: it is getting harder and harder to get tubes that are stable, have predictable sound and performance characteristics, and are long-lived. And you have to show audiophiles who have been burned before that you will still be around when they need service.