My very first review of a preamplifier, for British magazine <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> in May 1984, was of the Audio Research SP-10. In my opening to that review, I wrote that, "more than any other component," a preamplifier "should approximate to the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/121503walker">Peter Walker</A>'s 'Straight Wire with Gain.'" By this I meant that a preamplifier should not be in the business of effecting dramatic changes, and in any case, dramatic changes are not the kind that prove to be of lasting value. However, I also wrote back then that what I became increasingly aware of while using the SP-10 "was the fact that 'neutrality' is a positive virtue rather than just an absence of aberration."

My very first review of a preamplifier, for British magazine <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> in May 1984, was of the Audio Research SP-10. In my opening to that review, I wrote that, "more than any other component," a preamplifier "should approximate to the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/121503walker">Peter Walker</A>'s 'Straight Wire with Gain.'" By this I meant that a preamplifier should not be in the business of effecting dramatic changes, and in any case, dramatic changes are not the kind that prove to be of lasting value. However, I also wrote back then that what I became increasingly aware of while using the SP-10 "was the fact that 'neutrality' is a positive virtue rather than just an absence of aberration."

My very first review of a preamplifier, for British magazine <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> in May 1984, was of the Audio Research SP-10. In my opening to that review, I wrote that, "more than any other component," a preamplifier "should approximate to the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/121503walker">Peter Walker</A>'s 'Straight Wire with Gain.'" By this I meant that a preamplifier should not be in the business of effecting dramatic changes, and in any case, dramatic changes are not the kind that prove to be of lasting value. However, I also wrote back then that what I became increasingly aware of while using the SP-10 "was the fact that 'neutrality' is a positive virtue rather than just an absence of aberration."

Out of habit now more than anything else, I keep my cell phone on the floor beneath my bed while I sleep at night. In the morning, when I wake, I still check my cell phone for any messages.

Back around Christmastime, when everyone around me seemed to be receiving iPods and gift certificates to the iTunes store, I thought I should give my loved ones <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/123107talk/">The MP3 Talk</a>. Now, John Atkinson, has prepared another version of <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html">The MP3 Talk</a>&#151live and in color with all sorts of cool graphs and stuff!