Added to the Archives

We kick off our anniversary collection with 40 Years of Stereophile: What Happened When. Editor John Atkinson recounts the complete history of Stereophile, starting in 1930 when J. Gordon Holt heard his first sound in North Carolina.

Next, JA tries to get a handle on important audio industry milestones with 40 years of Stereophile: The Hot 100 Products. Atkinson notes, "There are many factors that make an audio component 'important': design innovation, sound quality, sales figures, influence on other designers, influence on the evolving market, influence on system synergy."

But what's a great audio system without great music? Robert Baird, Richard Lehnert, and Robert Levine dust off their collections to come up with 40 Years of Stereophile: The 40 Essential Albums. RB laments, "And I used to think our annual "Records To Die For" issue was difficult."

For his "As We See It," 40 Years of Stereophile from the anniversary issue, JA talks about "the monthly miracle," as it's called in publishing. "Four decades later, in a different century, we are still calling the shots as we see 'em, and we are still basing our value judgments on how products sound."

From the 1987 25th anniversary issue, we have No-Holts-Barred: 25 Years of Stereophile. As author Edward T. Dell, Jr. notes, "The temptation to talk at length about the effects J. Gordon Holt's work has had on the quality of recorded sound, or the equipment we use to reproduce it, is almost irresistible."

Finally, the next installment in our "Recording of the Month" series for the online archives: Recording of November 2002: 4 Generations of Miles. Zan Stewart explains why this Chesky disc, recorded May 12, 2002, "is a welcome addition to that musical bounty" of 75th-anniversary Miles Davis tributes.

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