Our best wishes to all our US readers on this special day. May the music pour forth from your systems and the turkey swell your waistbands to bursting.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

As many of you regular forum members might know my wife and I lived in the Netherlands from August 2007 to October 2008. In the Netherlands, a very beautiful country filled with plenty of warm and friendly people, the issue of global warming is not open to discussion since with 60% of the population already living below sea level, they really can't afford a "wait and see" attitude.

I was delighted to read ST's review of Verity Audio's Parsifal Ovations in the December issue. As Sam points out, Verity is not a company that tends to shout from the rooftops, but their products speak for themselves and in my view deserve serious consideration by anybody looking for compact, unobtrusive and beautifully engineered floorstanders in that price-range.

I'm getting into hifi, but being a kid (and thus having no money) I have to rely on times when I can convince my dad to buy stuff, and even then my budget is absolutely bargain-basement. The current setup I'm using is stuff I dug out of a closet, the following equipment:

Infinity SS 2001 loudspeakers (purchased in 1996)
Denon DRA-835R stereo receiver (purchased in 1992)
Technics SL-50 CD changer (purchased in 1992)

I figure I won't truly be able to say I'm going through my analog journey without trying a Denon 103, which I've always wanted to hear. (I'd probably try the Zu variant of Denons, actually, especially after reading AD on the Zu...) But I had a question on the Denons, the 103 vs. 103R. What sets these apart, and what are their relative virtues and deficiencies in your personal opinions? Thanks.

Has anyone spent any time reading of the period before the US Civil War or the more recent Spanish Civil War? The decades leading up to both have a lot of similarities with today

Well, we've got Rants and Raves, a newbie section, a section for all things non-audio related, a tweaks section, esoteric forums like room tuning, and even commercial interests like Mfrs and Dealers, but no General Audio discussion

section, ironically enough, in the General Discussion section. To be honest, with you, that would have been the very first forum I would have put up if I were webmaster.