The October 2010 issue of
Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, you’ll see a pretty much life-sized image of Logitech’s Squeezebox Touch, a real dandy of a hi-fi product that costs just $300 and seems to captivate everyone who comes into contact with it. The normally unflappable Kal Rubinson ends his review (page 118) by advising, “Get a Squeezebox Touch right now. You’ll never look back.” Even our cover photographer, Eric Swanson, fell in love with the little thing. He bought his sample. We chose the Mobile Fidelity version of Beck’s
Sea Change for the cover art because it connects with Robert Baird’s feature piece on outstanding reissues (page 111), and because the colors are pretty. The colors featured on the Squeezebox Touch’s display dictated those used by our graphic designer, Natalie Baca, in her cover treatment.
The issue opens with an essay titled, “Why Music Matters Most: Enjoyment, Illusion, and the Audiophile,” by my friend, Michael Lavorgna. Michael has a great knack for getting to the heart of a matter, most any matter, looking at its complexities and its idiosyncrasies and knocking them on their heads, clarifying things, illuminating the essential, bringing a bright, blue sky to a gray and murky day. He’s a lot of fun to be around. In his essay, Michael takes a look at the act of listening to music on a hi-fi. He breaks it down:
Hi-fi’s value is not its ability to create a convincing, objective and measurable illusion; its value is the ability to let us listen to whatever we want, whenever we choose, and as often as we like.
How do you like them apples?
Right around the same time Michael was composing this piece, he and I went over to a favorite record shop,
Other Music, for an in-store performance by
Zola Jesus, the enrapturing. After she thoroughly transformed the small space, ending the set by climbing atop the counter and shrieking like a deranged animal, Michael and I walked, in a trance, to
Great Jones Caf for a couple of pints and some of the best wings in the world. Because the place was crowded, we decided to sit at the bar.
There we were, sitting at the bar, when I realized that the guy who had just taken our order was also the guy we’d seen months before, playing bass for Sonic Youth: Mark Ibold. I turned to Michael, as slyly as I could, and said, “Holy shit, dude,
that’s Mark Ibold!”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s Mark Ibold, the bass player for Sonic Youth and Pavement.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Should we look it up on my iPhone?”
“Yeah.”
Michael tapped at his screen, and there it was, a picture of Mark Ibold standing behind the bar at Great Jones Caf, just as he stood before us then, there, in the real world, asking if he could take our orders.
I shook his hand and told him, basically, that he was a god. If anything, I should be taking his order. He was super-cool about it, and answered all of my silly questions, and gave me the impression that he’s a genuinely sweet and normal dude. Albeit a god, of course.
Along the way, while blushing and enjoying our beers and wings, Michael and I talked about hi-fi. Obviously. What else do two audiophiles talk about in a bar? Music? Art? Women? (Yeah, we talked about all that stuff, too.) I mentioned to Michael that Art Dudley would be covering the Shindo Vosne-Romanee (page 37), and Michael’s eyes went wide. He almost choked on his Six Points IPA. Michael knows a thing or two about Shindo gear, and he knows about the high level of performance promised by the Vosne-Romanee. When I asked him what all the fuss was about, he answered, uncannily, with almost the exact same stuff Art says in the opening five paragraphs of his review. Read those five paragraphs, and you’ll hear, pretty much, what Michael said to me, sitting there at Great Jones.
Art ends the column with some tough love:
When you’ve had enough of spending thousands of dollars on the kind of sound that the gurus say you ought to like, and you’re ready to please yourself by spending your money on gear that you stand a chance of loving and keeping and handing down to your descendants, you can do no better than this brand.
More apples. Damn. What am I supposed to do now? I guess I’ll have to start saving.
I remember the day Robert Baird charged out of the office, on his way to interview Nick Cave and Jim Sclavunos of
Grinderman for a piece on the band’s new album (page 171). Robert was looking spiffy that day, a nice shirt and jeans, a new haircut. He came back, however, drenched in sweat and looking like he’d been mauled by a dog.
“What happened to you?!”
“Nothing,” he replied and walked quietly into his office.
Also in this month’s issue: Reviews of Einstein’s The Tube Mk.II line preamplifier—smarter than your average preamp (page 131); McIntosh’s MC275 power amplifier—still going strong after 50 years (page 141); NAD’s PP 3 USB phono preamp—high-quality vinyl playback and digitization on the cheap (page 151); Audio Analogue’s Crescendo CD player and integrated amplifier—Italian charm (page 21); HiFiction’s Thales AV tonearm—reinventing tangential tracking (page 29); and Vivid Audio’s V1.5 loudspeaker—changing the game (page 45). John Atkinson, Erick Lichte, and Art Dudley offer Follow-Up reviews on the
dCS Puccini SACD playback system (page 159),
CEntrance DACport USB headphone amplifier (page 161),
Harbeth P3ESR loudspeaker (page 163),
Acapella High Violoncello II loudspeaker (page 165), and the Miyajima Shilabe phono cartridge (page 168).
Whew!
And, oh yeah: Our reviewers and editors rate the best-sounding audio components. “Recommended Components” begins on page 55 and doesn’t quit until page 109.
How do you like them apples? Let us know,
in the Forum.
