The March 2010 issue of
Stereophile is now on newsstands. Open it up and you’ll see that Steve Guttenberg has rediscovered his faith in vinyl. Hooray! What did it for him? A new turntable: the VPI Classic. “Coming back to vinyl,” Steve writes, “I now see that digital’s primary fault is that it encourages passive listening.”
Passive listening is the devil. Hallelujah, Steve has seen the light.
Deeper in, we have two excellent, intense features: Keith Howard’s “Arc Angels,” examining tonearm geometry, and Richard Lehnert’s “Finally, A Finale,” exploring the many odds and ends of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No.9. Keith Howard blows my mind with his technical expertise, while Richard knocks me down with his passion. These are fascinating, exhilarating pieces—exactly the kind that make
Stereophile special—and I’m so proud to have been a small part in their making.
Every month, we get tons of letters from enthusiastic readers. Many more letters come in than we have room to print, but John Atkinson does an admirable job of sorting through those letters and compiling them in a way that tells a story, one representative of what’s hot on our reader’s minds and one that propels us into the issue at hand. This month, we have some brilliant discourse between the readers and Art Dudley, as well as interesting comments on recent controversial reviews of the
Bryston 7B-SST2 power amplifier and
Totem Acoustic Forest loudspeaker. John Atkinson has taught me that one sign of a healthy magazine is a vibrant letters section, and we certainly have that.
Perhaps our greatest asset, however, can be found in the diversity of interests and wealth of experience provided by our columnists. In this issue’s “Sam’s Space,” the inimitable Sam Tellig gives us a history lesson on class-A amplification and kicks the tires on Musical Fidelity’s new class-A AMS35i integrated amplifier. In “Analog Corner,” Michael Fremer takes us on a tour of the Ortofon cartridge factory in Denmark, listens to the latest iteration of the beautiful
Oracle Delphi turntable, and tries out a high-tech stroboscope from Sutherland Engineering. In “Listening,” Art Dudley has a wild time with the Thomas Schick transcription-length tonearm on (and off) his vintage Thorens TD-124 turntable. And in “Music in the Round,” Kal Rubinson takes a look inside Lexicon’s BD-30 Blu-ray player ($3499) and matches it against the benchmark Oppo BDP-83SE ($899). Has Lexicon
justified the extra $2600?
Of course, we also have full equipment reports, pairing our contributors’ listening impressions with a set of detailed technical measurements conducted by John Atkinson. This month features a great bunch of reviews: JA looks at the paradigm-shifting NAD M2 “Direct Digital” integrated amplifier; Erick Lichte returns with an enthusiastic report on the Manley Labs Stingray iTube; Mikey Fremer is wowed by the Vandersteen Model Seven loudspeaker; Bob Reina finds a new standard in the Dynaudio Excite X12 minimonitor; and Art Dudley wonders if Naim’s new Uniti one-box solution lives up to the British company’s tradition of quality.
Finally, our “Recording of the Month” is
a lovely LP box set of Neil Young’s first four albums, remastered and reproduced with original artwork and liner notes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve Guttenberg has got
Harvest spinning on his VPI Classic right now.
