Book Review: Get Better Sound Manufacturer's Comment

Manufacturer's Comment

Editor: Just a few comments regarding Art Dudley's review in the July issue (p.107):

1) Get Better Sound is available exclusively from Quarter Note Press, through its dedicated www.getbettersound.com website; by calling Quarter Note at (770) 777-2095; or by e-mail at jim@getbettersound.com.

2) Included with GBS is a free addition to the manual in the form of a quarterly newsletter called (you can probably guess) Quarter Notes. It includes additional tips, plus comments by knowledgeable manufacturers (not about their products, but about getting better sound). Additionally, the readers themselves have offered some interesting feedback, so where it's appropriate, those comments are included as well. Heck, even reviewers can participate!

3) Some folks have requested a clothbound version, and that is available as well as the softbound version reviewed in July.

4) Art mentioned that "There's nothing a reviewer likes more than to see someone agree with him in print." I'd like to suggest that there's nothing an author likes more than to see a reviewer agree with him in print! Needless to say, I liked Art's review.

5) Speaking of agreeing, there are two areas where I do not necessarily agree with Art:

First, although I've not used the Ayre IBE disc on a Quad system, I've used it on lots of others. I think it was at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show that George Cardas advised us (Avantgarde-USA—Casey McKee and me) that, for best results, we not play it above a relatively soft level. I wonder if Art could possibly have played the disc a bit too loudly.

Second, Art opined that the GBS manual would be greatly enhanced by a few more graphic images, such as a chart of musical pitch to frequency, a chart of room dimensions vs low-frequency quarterwave, and perhaps a simple cartridge-alignment grid. All good points; they were purposely not included because: a) there are lots of those things around, and b) the entire manual is crafted in such a way that the reader doesn't have to look too hard to get the meaning of any of the graphics.

So there you have it! Thanks for the opportunity to comment.—Jim Smith

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