Stephen Mejias

Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.35 No.1

Stephen Mejias  |  Dec 22, 2011

Happy New Year! The January 2012 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. In this issue, you’ll find in-depth reviews of loudspeakers from TAD, Sonus Faber, Nola, and Dynaudio; amplification components from Sutherland, Fi, and Anthem; D/A processors from Weiss, Bel Canto, dCS, and Musical Fidelity; power conditioning from Audience, AudioQuest, and Shunyata; and CD players from Emotiva and Sony.

In “As We See It,” Bob Deutsch offers five ways to determine whether a “tweak” is worth our time and money. In “Letters,” readers tell us why they listen, and offer memories of audio industry pioneer, AR’s Edgar Villchur. In “Industry Update,” Paul Messenger reports from the National Audio Show in Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, and Jason Victor Serinus reports from the Burning Amp Festival in San Francisco. Meanwhile, music editor Robert Baird reports from Blues Masters at the Crossroads, Chad Kassem’s annual bluesfest; raves about Bad As Me, the latest release from one of the world’s greatest songwriters, Tom Waits; and talks with Roy Head about biting Elvis, breaking fingers, and busting moves.

We’ve also got a ton of great new music in our “Record Reviews” section, including reissues of work by Patricia Barber, Tony Joe White, Black Sabbath, and the B-52’s; a live set from John Prine; and new releases from Mayer Hawthorne, Oneohtrix Point Never, Wooden Shjips, Patrick Cornelius, Fab Trio, Gerry Mulligan, Keith Jarrett, and the awesome power trio of Raoul Bjorkenheim, Bill Laswell, and Morgan Agren.

And the biggest news of all: The January 2012 issue introduces our new look. A ton of work and sleepless nights went into this, and we’re happy with the results. Special thanks go out to our graphic designers, Natalie Baca and Pip Tannenbaum. We’ve tried to make the magazine friendlier, easier to read, and more attractive, while reinforcing our strengths—the depth of our review coverage and the diverse personalities of our writers. Please let us know what you think. We’re excited about the year to come: Vol.35 represents the magazine’s 50th year of listening, measuring, and sharing the passion for great music and sound.

Thanks for reading Stereophile.

COMMENTS
music guy's picture
Submitted by music guy on December 22, 2011 - 8:05pm

I would certainly expect that the digital version would be far more readily accessable than the street level hard copy but, accordingly, not so.  Zinio doesn't have this available for download.  Suspect you guys pays some overhead for this group but I must admit that I don't care for them...the default page is, essentially an ad page for other editions/ magazines other than the one I subscribe to.  Call me stupid but I resent being sent to their ad page as a default.  You guys won't like this but the Absolute Sound has a simple PDF delivery site and it is far preferable to Zinio.

WDW

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson on December 23, 2011 - 5:44am

I am not sure why the Zinio January 2012 edition of Stsreophile is not yet available. I will find out when our office opens next Tuesday aftre the holiday break

But I am not sure I understand your comment about the Zinio ad page. It is not possible to make the Zinio Stereophile edition accessible to subscribers of the paper magazine free of charge, I am afraid. You will need to purchase a separate subscription. It costs just $9.95 for 12 issues.

There are four ways of accessing our content: 1) a subscription to the paper magaizne; 2) a subscription to the Zinio edition; 3) purchase each issue at a newsstand; 4) read most of the content on-line free at this website.

Happy Holidays

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

music guy's picture
Submitted by music guy on December 23, 2011 - 6:44am

My apologies if I've confused the issue...I am a digital subscriber and my comment concerning the "ad" page is just that when opening Zinio on my iPad the default opening page is essentially a page showing other magazine offerrings rather than opening directly to my library...not a big issue but just another small bit of commercial intrusion that I find mildly annoying...Zinio using my subscription and iPad to advertise further services without offering the option to bypass this page....Merry Christmas to All

CG's picture
Submitted by CG on December 23, 2011 - 6:59am

I feel your pain on not getting the digital version yet.  It *is* very frustrating.  With some luck, I hope to read January's issue by Easter...

I have to say that on my Mac, Zinio opens to my library.

On the iPad, my preferred reader now, you can set where you want the application to start in the Preferences.  Mine now goes to my library.

 

music guy's picture
Submitted by music guy on December 23, 2011 - 7:05am

Thanks for that tip..didn't see the preference panel at all ... so now I've shown my utter stupidity on an international forum...what can I say.... ;-)

CG's picture
Submitted by CG on December 23, 2011 - 1:35pm

Now, if you could only get a magazine to read!

karl f's picture
Submitted by karl f on December 23, 2011 - 9:18am

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Germany !

karl f

deckeda's picture
Submitted by deckeda on December 23, 2011 - 2:02pm

... is pretty much *never* available right when these announcements get posted here. Not sure where the mystery is there.

I look forward to this issue. More love for Pioneer speakers and exposing readers to a FireWire DAC will open their eyes.

Regarding the latter, part of me is surprised there aren't more of these (FW DACs, not readers ...). Playback software companies routinely advise users to put data on one bus and their DAC on another (assuming computer playback, which seems an increasingly safe bet.) Nevertheless, what do many people use? USB hard disks, despite also using a USB DAC.

Then again, at over $7K, a PC user could just buy a $20 USB card instead and have the second bus right there, assuming they were that worried about that aspect.

Stephen Mejias's picture
Submitted by Stephen Mejias on December 27, 2011 - 9:04am

Our rep at Zinio has informed me that the digital edition was mailed to subscribers at 5:30 PM EST on 12/23 -- one day behind schedule due to some formatting problems we were dealing with in relation to our new design.  We're sorry about the delay.

The Zinio edition is sent to subscribers on the magazine's official on-sale date, which changes from month to month.  In this case, that date was December 22, the day that I posted this announcement.

If you have not received your Zinio editions, it is possible that the e-mail was quarantined by your spam filter.  If you have not received your Zinio editions, I would be happy to inform our rep at Zinio.  I'll just need the e-mail address tied to your Zinio account.

deckeda's picture
Submitted by deckeda on December 28, 2011 - 7:20pm

Although I don't ever recall having the monthly Zinio notice plop into my spam folder, I looked this time and there it was.

But a few minutes prior, I'd launched the Zinio app and the issue wasn't there. After finding the email and waiting a minute I switched back to the app and it appeared.

Stephen Mejias's picture
Submitted by Stephen Mejias on December 29, 2011 - 7:16am

Murphy's Law, or something. Glad you have your issue now.

Dan Moroboshi's picture
Submitted by Dan Moroboshi on January 6, 2012 - 5:46pm

I was very happy that 'our' magazine is evaluating with the new layout. I liked it very much and I feel that other readers will also enjoy.

Though, I would like to raise a suggestion for an even better layout: the graphs on measurements from the gears' review should be larger, instead of shorter. This is one major point that I considered to be an periodic subscriber (the other one is the recommended list). I am an engineer and I deal with graphs, plots and schematics every day, but they need to be 'readable'. From the comments from JA on the plot, I couldn't notice some aspects that he raised. Please, consider to make them larger!

 

Happy new year!

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson on January 7, 2012 - 8:52am

Quote:
I would like to raise a suggestion for an even better layout: the graphs on measurements from the gears' review should be larger, instead of shorter.

When we were working on the redesign, Mr. Moroboshi, we felt that as the graphs would be printed at a larger size on our website, we could reduce their size in the print magazine by 30% and use the extra space for more photos of the equipment being reviewed, which had been a common request.

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

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