If you're an audiophile, the words "hearing loss" are bound to strike terror into your heart. Of course, many of us aren't preternaturally acute&mdash;and all of us lose some high-frequency sensitivity as we age&mdash;but there's no excuse for not taking care of what you've got. When it comes to hearing, more is <I>always</I> better.

Some say it dates back 50 years, to when the late David Hafler introduced a tube amplifier with a "better-sounding" ultralinear output stage. Others claim it goes back to the introduction of electrical recording and playback in 1927, when <I>Gramophone</I> magazine's founder and editor, author Sir Compton McKenzie, thundered that electrical reproduction was a step <I>backward</I> in sound quality. But whenever it started, the "Great Debate" between "subjectivists," who hear differences between audio components, and "objectivists," who tend to ascribe such differences to the listeners' over-heated imaginations, rages just as strongly in the 21st century as it did in the 20th.

Medford, Long Island&ndash;based manufacturer Shahinian Acoustics has announced a recapitalization and a manufacturing-facilities expansion to meet demand for its quasi-omnidirectional loudspeakers. In a related development, Vasken Shahinian has succeeded his father as president and managing director.

<I><B>Editor's Note: </B>In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then </I>de rigeur<I> for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.</I>

<I><B>Editor's Note: </B>In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then </I>de rigeur<I> for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.</I>

<I><B>Editor's Note: </B>In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then </I>de rigeur<I> for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.</I>

<I><B>Editor's Note: </B>In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then </I>de rigeur<I> for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.</I>

Like the Reference Studio/60, which was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1204paradigm">enthusiasti… reviewed</A> in the December 2004 issue by Kalman Rubinson, Paradigm's floorstanding Reference Studio/100 is now available in a v.3 version. The '100 is the flagship model in the Canadian manufacturer's Reference line. Its earlier incarnations, the original Studio/100 and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/252/">Studio/100 v.2</A>, were reviewed by Tom Norton and Robert Deutsch in the August 1997 and June 2000 issues of <I>Stereophile</I>, respectively, and both writers were well impressed at how much sound quality could be wrought from this competitively priced speaker design. Bob Deutsch, in particular, referred to the v.2 as a "a serious high-end contender, and a formidable one for just about any speaker in its price range and even well above."

Like the Reference Studio/60, which was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1204paradigm">enthusiasti… reviewed</A> in the December 2004 issue by Kalman Rubinson, Paradigm's floorstanding Reference Studio/100 is now available in a v.3 version. The '100 is the flagship model in the Canadian manufacturer's Reference line. Its earlier incarnations, the original Studio/100 and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/252/">Studio/100 v.2</A>, were reviewed by Tom Norton and Robert Deutsch in the August 1997 and June 2000 issues of <I>Stereophile</I>, respectively, and both writers were well impressed at how much sound quality could be wrought from this competitively priced speaker design. Bob Deutsch, in particular, referred to the v.2 as a "a serious high-end contender, and a formidable one for just about any speaker in its price range and even well above."