“Until now, rock ‘n’ roll has largely been viewed as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop that preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music that had previously been played only by and for blacks,”

These are great times for hi-fi gear, especially loudspeakers.

I latched on pretty fast to Dynaudio's Excite X12, but I wasn't the first at Stereophile to discover that loudspeaker. That was Bob Reina.

Drat!

Bach-Malloch: The Art of Fuguing
The Sheffield Ensemble and California Boy's Choir, Lukas Foss, cond., recorded live at First Presbyterian Church, Hollywood.
Town Hall Records S-20 & S-21 (each 2 LPs, 1979), Sheffield Lab 10047-2-G (CD, 1995). Lincoln Mayorga, prod., Ron Hitchcock, eng., Lincoln Mayorga Doug Sax, CD mastering eng. AAA (LP), AAD (CD).

These 2-disc albums are of unusual interest for several reasons. First, although both are of exactly the same program material, there were recorded with completely different microphone techniques. One was done with the usual (for commercial recordings) multi-microphone set-up and mixdown (S-20). The other (S-21) was done with a single stereo mike—the technique preferred by most audio perfectionists. [This is the version on the 1995 CD reissue—Ed.]

Take a break from the heat and dive in to some fine sounds. The Las Vegas Audio Club is delighted to announce that on Saturday July 19, 2–5pm, Philip O'Hanlon from On A Higher Note will present the Luxman DA-06 DAC, PD-171 turntable (both reviewed by Stereophile's Art Dudley) and the L-590aX integrated amplifier driving the Vivid B1 loudspeakers, reviewed by John Atkinson.

Two silly-expensive preamplifiers, from Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems and Lamm Industries, are featured in the August Stereophile and both offer sound quality and measured performance that are beyond reproach. Rounding out this issue's amplification theme are a tubed integrated amplifier from Octave Audio in Germany and a high-quality class-D integrated amplifier from the American Rogue company. Contrasting with the preamplifiers, the Rogue is affordably priced, as is a Tascam CD player that John Marks raves about in his "Fifth Element" column and the Musical Fidelity V90-DAC, which gets the full review treatment from John Atkinson.

Charlie Haden, one of the great jazz bassists, died this morning, at age 76, after a long illness.

It seems more and more that I'm reviewing equalization products in this column, and that such components are less often dealt with in the magazine's formal equipment reports. But it's not as if the problems created by room acoustics affect only multichannel systems. Stereophile has not ignored the topic—see the many reviews of physical and electronic room-treatment products posted on this website—but months can pass without publication of a review of such a component. Meanwhile, multichannel devotees such as I seem to talk about almost nothing else—and here's why.