Stephen Mejias

Marantz has introduced four new, relatively affordable products: two integrated amplifiers and two disc players. All carry on the sleek, attractive design of the company’s reference components, featuring the classic Marantz star logo (cool), sculpted faceplates, and solid-looking build.

Phiaton, maker of sexy headphones for sexy people, has a">http://www.phiaton.com/">a nice new website filled with pictures of attractive young adults, set in clean, chic surroundings, looking very deeply engaged with what they’re doing, whether at work or at play or getting ready for a big date, while wearing Phiaton headphones. Check it out.

The August 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. The cover, with its mellow tones, is one of my favorites. To a greater degree than any other cover we’ve released, this one got a buzz going around the office. People would walk by and say nice things. I hope the cover works the same magic for people browsing the newsstands.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZCBe7-6rw4M&hl=en_US&fs=1"> name="allowFullScreen" value="true">http://www.youtube.com/v/ZCBe7-6rw4M&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="385">

Yesterday morning, John Atkinson and I drove out to Mikey Fremer’s place to perform a set of test measurements on the Magico">http://www.magico.net/magicoq/index.php">Magico Q5 (review scheduled for our November issue). While JA set up his gear for the in-room measurements, I got to listen to music. Mikey was my personal DJ. He played some sultry Julie London, some angry Gil Scott-Heron, and some soothing Nat “King” Cole. All three, thanks to the outstanding recordings and thanks to the outstanding system, sounded very much alive.

Speaking of upgrades, this just arrived in the mail. Rega’s drive belt upgrade ($59) is supposed to do something good for my P3. It has something to do with tolerances and stuff.

Rega’s outstanding">http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/708rega/">outstanding P3-24 turntable is available in lots of fun colors, and even though I do love my white P3, I still suffer from color envy. I want a green one, a blue one, an orange one, a">http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2010/regas_p3-24_is_pretty_in_pink/">a pink one. I would like a different P3 for every day of the week, a P3 for my every mood. I wonder if the different colors have different sonic properties. For instance, does my white P3 sound purer than a black P3? Are certain colors better suited to certain types of music? Blue for the blues?