In my opinion there are two albums that are the best of the best of jazz: one is All Blues by Miles Davis the other Blue Train by John Coltrane. This week Columbia released the 50th Anniversary box set of All Blues and although it is pricey at $80 it is worth the price of admission.

Hi

For various reasons ive swapped my Quad pre amp for a NAD C 162.

The problem i have is that i cant get sufficient power from the phono stage, it sounds really weak and pathetic. Im using a Clearaudio Virtuoso MM cartridge that on paper puts out 3.4 mV. It worked fine into the Quad but now im just not getting gain, ive tried a Cambridge audio phono stage that introduces 39dB of gain and connected this into an AUX port and it sounds even worse. I tried the MC input of the C162 thinking at worst id over drive but this sounded even worse and quieter than the MM input.

I managed to pick up a pair of Mariah Acoustics Model 1 bookshelf speakers at the weekend. All I know is that they were made in the '80s by a company near Woodstock in upstate New York. Does anybody have any more info/specs about these speakers, and how they were rated by audiophiles at the time?

Many thanks.

Chris.

I've been shopping for a new two channel system, visiting some of the high end indie audio dealers. My budget is $10K, and I've heard some pretty impressive gear. Every dealer I've visited, though, is recommending that I sink something like 10% to 20% of my budget into power conditioning, cable, and related accessories. I'd appreciate some feedback as to whether, all things being equal, dropping say $2,000 on speaker wire, connects, and power conditioning is going to improve the sound more than putting another $2K into the core hardware.

WOW ! That is a great summary of this excellent CD with Joey DeFracesco and Papa John DeFrancesco. On the way back home from a job interview I heard the song "Those were the days" which was the opening song to the show "All In the Family" and wrote down the CD so I could order it as soon as I got home and what a great CD it is. The sound is exceptional and this funky album will have you cranking the hi-fi and people asking "who is that?"