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Bluetooth headphones have brought me joy for years—sometimes a little too much. Once, while waiting for a flight at my regional airport, I switched on the active noise cancellation, closed my eyes, and got so sucked in by Elvis Costello's album Imperial Bedroom that I didn't hear the boarding calls. It was no fun texting my client that I'd missed my flight. I fibbed that I'd been stuck in traffic, because blaming Costello for delivering such an immersive triumph would've been uncouth.

For all their convenience, Bluetooth headphones and earbuds have fundamental problems. Take their batteries (please). They're only fully rechargeable 300–500 times, which means that after just two or three years of moderate-to-heavy use, most people toss their depleted wireless ear-fi in a drawer and buy a new pair.

As I was preparing our annual Records to Die For feature for 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it occurred to me that at such a moment, "Records to Die For" didn't evoke the same feelings it once did. That name—for what has become Stereophile's most popular feature—had started out light-hearted, derived from a 1980s pop-culture idiom, which eventually found expression in several book and movie titles as well as at least one Death-Metal band. In late 1990, as the 1991 feature was being prepared, it didn't seem so light-hearted at a time of so much death and suffering. At such times, music is a salve, a source of encouragement, perhaps even a means for survival. Records to Die For officially became Records to Live For.

Today—knock on wood—the worst of COVID well behind us, the new designation seems exactly right. This feature is all about music that inspires, that makes life rich—that gives us a reason to live, in times troubled and joyous. These are records that, if you knew you didn't have that much time left, you'd be eager to hear one last time. At least.

Jerome Sabbagh: Vintage
Sabbagh, saxophone; Kenny Barron, piano; Joe Martin, bass; Johnathan Blake, drums
Sunnyside SSC 1698 (LP). 2023. Jerome Sabbagh, prod.; Ryan Streber, Pete Rende, Bernie Grundman, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

This is an album with serious audiophile cred. It was recorded to analog tape on a Studer A800 MKIII at 30ips, by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York. It was mixed, also at 30ips, on a custom, tubed Ampex 351, by Pete Rende. Bernie Grundman mastered it for vinyl and cut the lacquer, direct from the analog tape, on an all-tube system. The executive producer for the vinyl version is Hervé Delétraz of darTZeel, who, Sabbagh told me, helped finance the mastering and pressing. Sabbagh listened to the acetates and test pressings at Ana Might Sound in Paris.

Before and since the pandemic, many traditional hi-fi dealerships evolved to expand the products and services they offer—into custom install and home integration, in particular. There has also been a bit of a multichannel/home theater resurgence.

Shifts in the market and personal interests led to changes at Adirondack Audio & Video, an established company with locations in upstate New York and—as HiFi Loft—in Manhattan. The company recently split into two separate entities. Under new ownership by a former partner/employee, just before Labor Day, 2023, HiFi Loft spun off from Adirondack and opened a new second location in Glens Falls, New York, about 45 minutes north of Albany. By all accounts, the separation was amicable, even favorable for each party.

Grateful Dead: Wake of the Flood, 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition; Betty Davis: Crashin' From Passion; X-Ray Spex: Conscious Consumer; Cat Power: Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.

Weinberg: Dawn, Op.60, Symphony No.12, Op.114; Nielsen: Violin Concerto, Flute Concerto, Clarinet Concerto; Walker: Sinfonias 1–5.

What goes into building and outfitting a listening room? One of Stereophile's reviewers found out first-hand—and almost bit off more than he could chew. A tale of white powder, a mummified dog, and various deals with the devil.