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?"

I was told by my brother in law that the correct volume for classical music is set by the ability to hear the quietest passages. However given that we all don't quite hear the same it may even vary from person to person.
All of this is fine but I now wonder if this applies ro rooms i.e the minimum and maximum volume or optimum volume would vary from room to room.
Would I be right in saying that a room can only handle a particular maximum volume after which the music would fall apart simply because the room cannot handle as in absorb/difuse fast enough?

Kal: I was wondering. I recently saw a new Blu-Ray player (the new Sony BDP-S550) that now incorporated TrueHD audio output, which could go out via HDMI v1.3 digital, OR separate analogue channels. Would this mean that one could get the player and have HD audio without having to get a new surround preamp processor? Is that the idea you think, or am I missing something?