"This product is an industry disrupter."

Thus spoke AudioQuest's Steve Silberman, VP of development, of their brand-new USB D/A converter, the DragonFly. "There are a lot of very good DACs out there," he continued. "There are even a lot of very good affordable DACs. But the problem is, people outside of audio don't want them: They don't want old-style components like that.

Somewhere in Budapest, something very scary is happening. Somewhere in Budapest, something very beautiful is blooming. Stereophile forum user vencel has reposted images of his rebuild of a Koetsu Rosewood cartridge starting at its grim and crud-crusted beginnings leading to its careful reconstruction and finishing with a gorgeously refurbished cartridge glowing in the light. The gruesome details of death and deconstruction are told through haunting images, and then hope is reborn through the hard work of vencel and his team’s delicate re-coiling and cleanup. The story can be seen here in our forums. I’m sure vencel would be happy to answer any questions. Congrats to you and your team!

Before 1982, when the Compact Disc arrived, I didn't love LPs. Analog was already very old tech, and while every trick in the book had been applied to turntables and LPs, they still wowed & fluttered at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. Vinyl's deficiencies were legion: warped LPs were more common than truly flat ones; surface noise, clicks, and pops sang along with the tune; LPs rarely had perfectly centered spindle holes; inner-groove distortions popped up at inopportune moments; and each time an LP is played, its sound quality degrades, if only ever so slightly. The LP format? Imperfect sound forever.

Patricia Barber: Nightclub & Modern Cool
Nightclub
Premonition 90763-1 (2 LPs). Patricia Barber, prod.; Michael Friedman, exec. prod.; Jim Anderson, eng.; Bob Ludwig, mastering; Doug Sax, mastering (LP). AAA? TT: 51:20
Performance ****
Sonics *****

Modern Cool
Premonition 90761-4 (BD-A). Patricia Barber, prod.; Michael Friedman, exec. & surround prod.; Jim Anderson, eng. & surround eng. Robert Gatley, asst. surround eng. ADD? TT: 67:49
Performance ****
Sonics *****

Much as the music world at large supremely values so-called original compositions (as if . . . but then that's a discussion for another day), it takes a special talent to make a song written by someone else—in common parlance, a cover—your very own. Take Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Alfie," from the 1966 film with Michael Caine in the title role. Recorded for the soundtrack by Cilla Black, and later cut by everyone from Babs and Bill Evans to the Delfonics and Sarah Vaughan—not to mention a pair of laughably bad versions from Cher—the song is nothing if not overexposed. Bacharach's own soaring arrangement for the film sticks in the world's collective head. For lesser performers, that alone would be more than enough to keep them well clear of trying to cover it.

The Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show (TAVES) launches its second annual three-day show on September 28 in downtown Toronto's historic King Edward Hotel. Produced by Canada HiFi's publisher/editor-in-chief, Suave Kajko, and his partner, Simon Au, and "presented by Porsche," TAVES promises multiple exhibit rooms in which between 65 and 70 exhibitors, over 80% of whom are manufacturers, will display approximately 274 component brands and media from 26 recording labels (CD, LP, and Blu-ray).

"I'm pretty excited about the preponderance of manufacturers, because they tend to have more elaborate set-ups and bring a lot more product with them," Kajko told Stereophile.

It was an audio demo quite unlike most others. Less than two weeks after the debut, at CEDIA 2012 in Indianapolis, of Steinway Lyngdorf's Model LS Concert two-way floor-standing dipole line-source loudspeaker/sound system, the LS Concert joined two other complete Steinway Lyngdorf systems for a "very first" quasi-public unveiling in San Francisco. Jointly staged on two floors of a Pacific Heights mansion, the event was hosted by several entities—Steinway Lyngdorf, a collaboration between piano maker Steinway & Sons and legendary audio innovator Peter Lyngdorf; Sherman Clay, the largest Steinway dealer in the United States; Engineered Environments, a residential systems design and installation firm that specializes in customized technological "solutions," including home entertainment systems, for a "discerning clientele"; and the Luxury Marketing Council of San Francisco. Hence the RSVP and "business attire" required, valet parking, catered event targeted, not audiophiles, but instead a select group of home builders, architects, custom installers, real estate brokers, and venture capitalists.

The Definitive Technology StudioMonitor 45 measures a very room- and back-friendly 11 11/16" (297mm) high by 6¾" (172mm) wide by 11 11/16" (297mm) deep, but these dimensions are attractive for reasons other than simple, efficient transport and placement. I noticed right away that something about the speaker just looked right. Paul DiComo, DefTech's senior vice president of marketing and product development, explained that while the number and size of drivers used in any DefTech design will largely dictate that speaker's height and width, the company nevertheless aims for Fibonacci, or golden-ratio, dimensions. According to DiComo, these efforts help minimize standing-wave and "organ-pipe" resonances inside the speaker's cabinet.