One by one, the major amplifier manufacturers have acceded to the pressures of the marketplace and introduced "solid-state" models, whether or not these happened to sound as good as their previous tube-type units. Dynaco was one of the last of the hold outs, preferring, according to their advertisements, to wait until they could produce a solid-state unit that was at least as good as their best tube types. Now, they've taken the plunge at last, with their Stereo 120.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of afternoons listening to a system built around the late David Wilson's magnum opus, the Wilson Audio WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeaker ($685,000/pair), which Jason Victor Serinus reported on in December 2016. In addition to the joy of simply listening to music on such exotic speakers, the experience provided insight into just how well the Master Chronosonics would work in a relatively normal-sized listening room—in this case, one measuring 21.5 feet long by a little over 18 feet wide, with a ceiling height of a little over 9.5 feet: not small in an absolute sense, but a lot smaller than the sort of space usually associated with speakers this large.

Thursday, July 18th from 4 - 7 PM at our showroom located at 647 Francisco Blvd. E., AVI Marin of San Rafael, California, will hold an intimate listening event with Dan D’Agostino’s Relentless monoblock amplifiers.

American composer John Adams and I first met in the late 1970s, when I became one of his composition students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. My recollections from those days endure as near-cinematic images: John lugging his homemade synthesizer—he called it "the Studebaker"—down the hall prior to meeting me at his office; an early performance, at Mills College in Oakland, of Adams's Shaker Loops (footnote 1) for string septet; sitting with Adams during rehearsals for the 1981 premiere of his choral symphony Harmonium (footnote 2), with Edo De Waart and the San Francisco Symphony.