EL Tweets from CES!
From left: JA (with unidentified baby), Jon Iverson, and Erick Lichte, riding an elevator at the Venetian, site of the high-performance audio suites, on Day 1 of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.
Stephen Mejias
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Ideas for 2010
I don’t think much about resolutions. One way or another, people do what they want to do, and all too often our desire conflicts with our resolve. But yesterday morning, as I was walking around downtown, waiting for everyone else to wake up, I stopped at Van Vorst Park to eat a banana and watch a father build a snowman for his son.
Nevermind and Original Recordings Group
For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie">http://www.stereophile.com/news/102207bernie/index.html">Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTIhttp://www.stereophile.com/features/408rti/index.html">RTI; on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original">http://www.originalrecordingsgroup.com/index.htm">Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.
Cassettes and Vinyl
Today I received my first package from Scotch">http://www.freewebs.com/scotchtapes/">Scotch Tapes! Inside the cardboard-reinforced padded envelope were five cassettes and three 7-inch EPs:
Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.33 No.1
The January 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. Hooray! A new volume! A new year! Twelve more issues of Stereophile! Whee! We are pretty excited about starting the year off with a review of a PC soundcard. And at just $200, the ASUS Xonar Essence is the least expensive product to ever grace the cover of our magazine. Plus, it’s got that pretty golden tiger thing on it. What aroused John Atkinson’s interest, however, was the ASUS’s claimed signal/noise ratio of 124dB: “True high-end territory.”
Where the Tapes Is
I’ve received two packages in the mail today. Both were from Portland, Oregon, a hotbed for outstanding independent music, and both contained tapeshttp://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/why_cassettes/">tapes;.
Why Cassettes?
I was introduced to Scotch">http://www.freewebs.com/scotchtapes/">Scotch Tapes, “the worst hi-tech music label ever,” on December 9, by a Twitterhttp://twitter.com/stereophilemag">Twitter; post from Jagjaguwarhttp://www.jagjaguwar.com/">Jagjaguwar;. Oneida would be releasing a limited-edition cassette through Scotch Tapes. This was interesting news to me, first because I">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_way_we_listened_then/">I’ve been fascinated with the idea of a “cassette tape revival,” and second because Oneida is a well-established name in the world of underground rock bands. Why would Oneida release work on a format that had been all but forgotten by the music industry? Why cassettes?
Iris Records Closes
Where did I hide that Replacements record, dammit?
Number Three
Oh yeah: Matador's">http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/12/09/this-christmas-just-g… having a holiday sale.
Intermission
A few things: