So I was lucky enough to find a pioneer tower speaker just sitting on the curb outside my house. I thought there was no way it would work, why else would someone throw it out unless it was broken? I plugged it in anyway to check, and it worked! Anyway I thought I would use it to replace my left speaker in my stereo setup, which has a messed up woofer. The problem is that my new tower speaker is about 3x the size as the right speaker now.

Made by the Italian company m2tech m2tech web page

This great disc has been in heavy rotation recently chez struts and the more I listen to it the more it grows on me. Trumpeter Tomasz Stanko alludes to some semi-familiar themes (e.g. the Polish national anthem) as well as the 'signatures' of some jazz trumpet legends, yet at the same time the music does not seem at all derivative.

If you like 'Kind of Blue' I can only suggest you check this out, it may lack some of the accessible hooks but for my money it gives nothing away in profundity or sheer beauty. The 2001 ECM recording is absolutely top notch.

Good piece on Ducktails, with references to a bunch of other bands I dug in 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/03/new-band-ducktails

I wrote a little bit about the album, Landscapes, here.

January2010Issue-ML-82196-ML-

There's an excellent new Stereophile article in which Art Dudley takes the gloves off for Mpingo discs, the Tate, uh, Tice Clock and the Quantum Corp. QRT devices.

Art Dudley takes the gloves off

Cheers

From what I understand from reading many articles and forums, the quality of the analog cables being used is very important to the overall quality of the final output. Knowing this, I have started looking for a good quality audio cable to meet a certain specific need. Basically, I need a Y cable of the type that would turn separate RCA audio left and right jacks into either one mini-stereo jack or one 6.33m stereo jack. I have tried looking at some of the same companies that make high end audio cables recommended by this magazine but can't find such a simple product by any of them.

Having a modest system is not keeping me from trying to squeeze the last drop of great sound out of it; on the contrary. If you care to know, please read on:

Since I began reading the Norwegian HiFi magazine "Fidelity" online a couple of months ago, and subsequently went on different audio forums, I have managed to find a path to the most easily audible way to start tweaking efficiently. Earlier on I didn't pay much attention to the fact that tweaks are best performed in a certain order, and the very first step, I have happily ignored for years.