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Blind though I am to the allure of blind testing, I can appreciate some degree of review-sample anonymity: Distinctive products elicit distinctive responses, but a plain black box encourages us to leave our prejudices at the door. It asks of us a certain . . . objectivity.

So it was with the Micromega AS-400 digital source/integrated amplifier ($4495), the anonymity of which was compounded, in my case, by a generous helping of forgetfulness: I suppose I was told, ahead of time, that this was a class-D amplifier, but at some point in time before my first at-home audition I apparently killed the brain cells responsible for remembering that fact. So I was innocent of conscious prejudice when I listened to this elegant cipher of a box and wrote, in my notes: "Dynamic, dramatic, and almost relentlessly exciting with some recordings. Imbued pianos with almost too much dynamism for the room—too much being very good!—but lacked some 'purr' in the die-away. Basically fine and fun. Wish it had a little more color and spatial depth."

Things move fast in multichannel. No, I'm not referring to the speed of sound effects as they whip around a room—let's leave that for the home-theater mags. I'm talking about audio technology. Since I began writing this column in June 2003, we've seen serious technological changes almost annually, some driven by real needs, some imposed by marketing considerations. To me, the rate of change seems strikingly rapid, compared to that of the products I review for the main portion of Stereophile, based, as they are, in the two-channel world.

I don’t really know what to say about this, so I’ll just quote the press release:

The role of an High End amplifier is to reproduce the music, all the music.

Amateur of beautiful often unique parts, GoldAmp is the Only One. An exceptional musical know-how. Celebrate interpreter who knows how to be forgot. A magnificent story which can be told by moments of complicity in the emotion. Reunion with classicals works henceforth dear to our hearts.

Newk's Time was the third of four albums that Sonny Rollins recorded for Blue Note, and it's the second reissued by Music Matters Jazz, the audiophile house that does up the Blue Note classics right, each title mastered at 45rpm and spread out across two extremely quiet slabs of vinyl. MMJ has already released Sonny Rollins, Vol. 1. That leaves Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2 and Night at the Village Vanguard (itself a 2-volume album). I hope they put them out too at some point. If they do (does this need to be said?), get them all.

Rollins was signed to Blue Note in 1956–57, one of several transitional periods and an almost absurdly prolific one. He recorded not only the four Blue Notes but also Saxophone Colossus and Freedom Suite for Prestige, Way Out West for Contemporary, and over a dozen sessions as sideman, for various labels, with Miles Davis, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, and Abbey Lincoln. Listening to all these albums (for the most part, a riveting experience), you can hear the subtle-then-transformative changes in Rollins' sound—and thus in modern jazz itself.

Newk's Time is particularly revealing in this sense. . .

Around midnight, Natalie decided to move the party from her and Nicole's apartment (see last month's column) to our favorite local dive, Lucky 7, just a few blocks away on the corner of Second and Coles, in Jersey City. We threw wide the old red door and stepped into the stench of stale beer, the sound of cheap speaker cones tearing at the seams. I love Lucky's as much as anyone, but the music there on a Saturday night is always too goddamned loud.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

A classic in the world of professional and enthusiast headphones, and probably the world's most popular DJ headphone, the HD 25 has remained in the Sennheiser line-up in a small variety of incarnations since 1987 ... and deservedly so.

When I first heard them about 15 years ago there were very few expensive headphones available, so they seemed pricy at the time. They sounded great though and were a solid recommendation. In today's world of high-priced fashion headphones, and even higher priced high-end headphones, these very good sounding and highly functional cans seem like a real bargain for professional and audio enthusiast alike.

Let's take a look at the latest incarnation, the Sennheiser/adidas HD 25 Original.

I’ve listened to no album this year more than I’ve listened to Wild Beasts’ Smother. For that matter, I’ve enjoyed no album more this year than Wild Beasts’ Smother. It courses slowly and deliberately through colors and moods of pain, longing, love, and desire&#151all that good stuff&#151and it does so with such a gentle touch, a delicious smoothness, a constant, lulling pulse.

It pours from your loudspeakers and into the room.