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LATEST ADDITIONS

Recommended Components: Fall 2016 Edition

Stereophile Staff Sep 15, 2016

We try to include in "Recommended Components" every product that we have found to be truly excellent or that we feel represents good value for money. Bear in mind that many different tastes are represented. The listing is compiled after consultation with Stereophile's reviewing staff and editors, and takes into account continued experience of a product after the formal review has been published. In particular, we take account of unreliability and defects that show up after extended auditioning. The fact that a product received a favorable review cannot therefore be regarded as a guarantee that it will continue to appear in this listing.

News

US-Made Products Debut in Florida Saturday

Stereophile Staff Sep 14, 2016

Saturday September 17, from 127pm, Audible Images (1610 Pineapple Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935) will be hosting Bill Peugh from Wilson Audio, Bill McKiegan from Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems, and Trent Suggs from Audio Research Corp. This event will be the Florida debut of the Wilson Yvette speakers, the D'Agostino Progression monoblocks, and the Audio Research Ref 3 phono preamp and Ref 6 preamp. The music will be accompanied by complimentary food and wine. For more information call (321) 626-3898.

As We See It J. Gordon Holt

Prognostications for 1969

J. Gordon Holt Sep 13, 2016

Editor's Note: 40 years before it became a reality, J. Gordon Holt predicts music streaming and predicts the Compact Cassette will become the dominant prerecorded music medium.

Traditionally, the New Year is the time when editors light their pipes, tilt their chairs back, fold their hands and shut their eyes, and make bold predictions about The Future. It is said that prognostications are always risky, because events have a nasty habit of making fools of those who prognosticate. It has been our observation, though, that the only prognosticators who are remembered are those who were proven right, so we are going to do some fearless limb-climbing about something that is coming to worry increasing numbers of stereophiles: Namely, which of all the current recording media is going to become The Standard for home use, and which are going to be left stranded on the shoals of obsolescence?

Miscellaneous Phono Accessory Reviews

Synergistic Research PHT

Michael Fremer, Robert Deutsch Sep 13, 2016

Synergistic's PHT ($199/set of two) is a very tiny, tweezer-ready HFT designed to placed atop a phono cartridge, and is marketed with a nod and wink: "grown in California, legal in all 50 states" (PHT is pronounced pot). Analog vets might remember Apature's line of moving-coil cartridges from the 1980s, which included the models Panama Red, Maui Blue, and Koce (which was white). Think I'm handing you a line? I've got a Koce here.

Jana Dagdagan

Wire You Blue

Jana Dagdagan Sep 12, 2016

The graphic above was created with data provided to me by the CTA (Consumer Technology Association). I understand that this data cannot possibly account for every single pair of Bluetooth-enabled speakers sold in any given year, but I believe that this is the most accurate account of data currently available to us.

News

It's Time for "Recommended Components"

Stereophile Staff Sep 11, 2016

The October issue is here, with revised and updated capsule reviews of 500 audio products that have been reviewed in the magazine, rated in six categories, from "E" for "Entry Level" to "A+" for those few products that are beyond criticism. Stereophile's "Recommended Components"often copied but never equaled.

Interviews

Musicians as Audiophiles: Ron Carter

Ken Micallef Sep 10, 2016

Ronald Levin "Ron" Carter is arguably the greatest upright jazz bassist to have ever walked four strings, and he's literally the most recorded bassist of all time. "With 2,221 individual recording credits, as verified on 15 September 2015," notes Carter's website. As I've interviewed musicians for Musicians as Audiophiles, to a man they've whispered, "You've got to hear Ron Carter's rig. He's deeeep into it."

Fred Kaplan

Cecile McLorin Salvant

Fred Kaplan Sep 09, 2016

How the hell could I have missed Cecile McLorin Salvant? It's not as if she's been toiling in obscurity. She won the Thelonious Monk award in 2010, the Downbeat Critics' Prize for best jazz album (WomanChild) in 2014, and a Grammy for best jazz vocal album ( For One to Love) just this year. She's been singing with her trio at the Village Vanguard this past week, and every set has been sold out or nearly so. Again, how did Isomeone who's supposed to follow this sort of thingmiss the boat?

Robert Baird

Crushed

Robert Baird Sep 09, 2016

A new CD/MP3 by Los Angeles-based Omnivore Records, a reissue label that’s growing more interesting with each release,

Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

ProAc Response 1S loudspeaker

Wes Phillips Sep 08, 2016

Here's the deal: If you're the kind of listener who must listen to your stereo at levels that change the barometric pressure of your listening room, or if you can't enjoy reggae concerts because they don't have enough bass, then the ProAc Response 1S (revised) is definitely not the speaker for you. Read no further. Move on. Scoot.

Anybody left? Good. Now we can talk about a very special little speaker. In a way, I didn't even want to review the 1S. I mentioned to John Atkinson that I'd heard them at my buddy Ruben's house and enjoyed them immensely, but I'd been using a pair of $13,000 speakers to review an exotic amplifier and had, sad to say, become quite spoiled: bass down to 28Hz, 93dB sensitivity, and some of the most accurate soundstaging I'd ever heardwe're talking about some serious suffering for my art, here.

So when the ProAcs arrived at my house, I thought it unfair: unfair to me (I was gonna miss them big dogs), and unfair to the Response 1S. After all, does anyone remember who played after the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show?