So far, as part of my quest to find good affordable box loudspeakers, I have reviewed 20 models, in the August, October, and November 1987, and January and February 1988 issues of Stereophile (Vol.10 Nos.5, 7, & 8, Vol.11 Nos.1 & 2). Nearly all affordable loudspeakers have to be used with a pair of stands: as these have an important influence on the integrity of the sound and tend to cost upward of $100 a pair for good models, this makes such speakers less of a bargain. This month, therefore, I review loudspeakers designed from the outset to be floor-standing: three from the USA—DCM's Time Frame TF1000, the planar-magnetic Magnepan MG2.5/R, and the Orpheus 808—and one from Sweden, the Rauna Balder. The prices are pretty closely grouped, with the DCM being the least expensive, at a hair under $1100/pair.

It would appear that there are still people out there who are unaware that this is the age of the transistor. Not only are tubed amplifiers not vanishing from the face of the earth, they are proliferating. Audio's equipment directory for 1977 listed three tubed power amplifiers. The same directory for 1984 lists over 30 of them, and the Quicksilver amplifier is not even included!

Peter Ledermann, founder and chief designer of Soundsmith, Inc., began his adventures in phono cartridges by reverse-engineering Bang & Olufsen's Moving Micro-Cross moving-iron cartridges for customers B&O had abandoned when it got out of the LP player business, and putting them into production. The B&O cartridges were of the direct plug-in variety; once they were no longer made, a worn or broken B&O cartridge would render a B&O turntable unusable.

Sol & Pat, J.S. Bach: Three or One, Britten, Young Apollo; Milhaud, Le Carnaval d'aix; Finzi, Eclogue*; Richard Strauss, Le bourgeois gentilhomme: Suite, Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande: Suite (arr. Nott); Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande and Fanny Mendelssohn, String Quartet; Felix Mendelssohn, String Quartets 2, 6.

Joe Farnsworth: City of Sounds, Julian Lage: Squint and Enrico Rava: Edizione Speciale.

The Replacements: Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (Deluxe Edition) and The Specials: Protest Songs 1924-2012.