LATEST ADDITIONS

I tried to get an arty shot of Bob Reina playing the Steinway. His chromaticism and inspired soloing made me aspire to a higher level of craft.

I never miss the John Atkinson Trio's performances. I like to watch my friends play music and it's a great chance to bond with my fellow audiophiles for an hour or so. But this year wasn't like other years—the boys just flat-out smoked! Allen Perkins of Immedia, already one of my favorite drummers, has been studying with Peter Erskine for a few years and he has burned away any clutter (not that there was much) and is now even more purely him than ever. Bob Reina's regular gigging with Attention Screen has focused his strengths and, I suspect, freed him from having to express everything he has to say every time out. He's playing freer, looser, and tighter than ever. And JA (photographed here by Bob Deutsch), I suspect he's been woodshedding. With editing Stereophile, producing records, and measuring every component we review, where does he find the time?

Signals-SuperFi's Chris Sommovigo poses with the new Continuum Criterion turntable and Copperhead Tonearm ($51,500). Well, he is the importer, after all. However, he is also the designer and manufacturer of Stereovox cables, and he had new AC cables, speaker cables, and interconnects to tout— Dragon AC ($3500), Dragon speaker ($11,000/pair), and Dragon interconnect (tbd). Why didn't he pose with his stuff?

Masataka Tsuda designs and manufactures both Concert Fidelity and Silicon Arts components. What's the diff? Concert Fidelity is his tube line; Silicon Arts Design represents his thinking on—you guessed it—solid-state.