This is THE rock album of the year for me, so far. Holy crap it is good. Haven't heard guitar come alive like this in a recent album by a "young" band. And I'm not talking about the kind of cool bluesy, spacy kind of guitar solos, i.e. Nels Cline in Wilco's latest, although that kind of guitar licks is great, too. I'm talking about the late 60's, early 70's wall-of-sound, psychedelic kind. The jams at the end of the song "Baltimore" & "Elmo Delmo" are just not of this era. Love how these songs push past 5-6 minutes, let the guitar wail & the song wander into place.

I am not easily impressed with new performers,and to be honest,i am not 100% sure they are new,but here's 2 pianists
i happen to watch on a classical channel on tv and was quite impressed with their playing.
1) Laurie Vavre Kahn
2)Sa Chen

I have a subscription to the electronic version of Stereophile magazine and I am a bit puzzled by the somewhat long delay in sending the electronic version of the magazine. By "long delay" I am referring to the fact that I do not receive the electronic version until two or sometimes three week after the print issue as been released. What is the reason for this delay and can anything be done to speed up the process so that the electronic version is available at the same time as the print version?

Thanks

With all of the talk about of our now ex-governor Elliiot Spitzer's extra-curricular activities, one thought comes to mind. The $4300 that he allegedly paid for that fateful encounter with 'Kristen' would have equally bought a Koetsu Urushi phono cartridge. And if the ex-gov's analog setup wasn't lacking or if he was a digital guy, he could have also bought some Nordost Valhalla cables or a couple of Shunyata Anaconda power cords for that kind of money. And the audiophile gear would provide years of enjoyment, rather than just a couple of hours.

My compliments to WP for a sensitive write-up of von Otter's tremendous "Terezin/Theresienstadt." Especially fine, I thought, were his thoughts on Gerhaher's rendition of Pavel Haas's "Four Songs on Chinese Poetry."

Folks,

Debate rages in both audiophile and professional audio circles about the importance of low-level artifacts such as distortion, jitter, quantization noise, and summing errors in DAW software. This article addresses the audibility of very soft artifacts, and includes Wave files you can download to discover for yourself at what volume level these artifacts can be heard.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/audibility.html

--Ethan

So Stereophile partners with Festival Son et Image in Montreal. This one is hard to swallow:

"The Show's keynote speech is being given by Monster Cable founder Noel Lee at 10am on the trade day, Thursday April 3."

Folks

I have a 28 year old phillips 7831 reciever with Boston Accoustics CR-8 speakers. I've tried upgrading the receiver over the years but nothing beats it. Now the left channel is fading in and out.

I generally listen to classical at low volume. Can anyone recommend a replacement reciever??

I dont think I need a home theater system.

Thanks

Charlie