Stephen Mejias

On Saturday, November 6, John DeVore of DeVore Fidelity hosted a Monkeyhaus Listening Party at his Brooklyn Navy Yard factory. If not for the pictures, a selection of which I’ll post over the next three days, I might not remember the event at all—not because the party was forgettable, but because we had so much fun.

Puerto Rico was wonderful, as always. We stayed at a place called Bello Horizonte, a comfortable home away from home, hidden atop a palm-covered hill in the sandy town of Rincon, where every road leads to the ocean. (I highly recommend it. The house sleeps six in three bedrooms, has two bathrooms, a wide-open patio with two hammocks, a very fine grill, washer and dryer, and a pool that looks down the hill and onto the nearby beaches. Full disclosure: My aunt rents the house; so, yeah, I want you to go there and give my aunt your money.) Our days were spent by the pool or on the beach (or at the bar on the beach), relaxing and laughing. My favorite moment was walking into the glittering, blue-green sea, with a six-pack of Coronas in one hand and a coconut in the other.

The November 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. Immediately after shipping the issue to press, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the 2011 Stereophile Buyer’s Guide. And almost immediately after shipping the Buyer’s Guide, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the December 2010. While the December issue was in its very final stages, we had to fly to Denver to cover the outstanding Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. It’s been a whirlwind and I can honestly say that I hardly remember working on the November issue.

Tomorrow afternoon, John Atkinson, Jason Victor Serinus, and I will meet in Denver, Colorado, for the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. If you're at the show, please say hello.

Michael Lavorgna’s October issue “As We See It” generated many more responses than we had space for in our December issue “Letters” section (a great bunch!), so we’ve appended all of the letters to the Web reprint, which you can find right here.