The English public may not like music, but they absolutely love the sound it makes.—Sir Thomas Beecham

Just as car magazines are filled with descriptions of how fast their subjects don't go and how surely they don't stop, magazines such as ours are filled with descriptions of how neutrally our subjects don't play tones, and how precisely they don't place images in space.

At a time when the heads of most record labels barely know how to play a record, let alone make one, Manfred Eicher—owner, founder, and inspiration of ECM Records, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2010—has been intimately involved in the making of nearly 1200 of them. How many, though, can he actually remember working on?

"When I listen back to them, I know the story of every record," he says without a smile or a moment's hesitation. "There is never an easy record. Every record needs a lot of input and concentration and dedication and passion to be made, that's clear. Create an atmosphere that is a productive search for music, and when this is the case, you have very memorable records."

Stereophile.com was feeling a little bit old.

We'd have to go back to September 2005 to recall the last major changes made to our website. It was then that we began adding our forums and blogs, which moved slowly at first, went through some growing pains, and finally became some of our most popular online destinations. About a year later, we made other minor revisions, altering the look and feel of our site to make it friendlier, more attractive, and easier to use.

These were all great moves, but the nature of the Web demands near-constant renewal. The time had come for some tube-rolling. Or, if you prefer, we needed to augment our physical media with a high-res, lightning-fast, computer-based system. Look at it however you like. The situation was clear: We were overdue for a facelift.