Sad news: Wes Phillips, who was Stereophile's deputy editor 1995–1999 and a valued contributor 2000 to 2011, passed away yesterday morning after several years of chronic ill health. Wes (right) is shown here at his leaving lunch, 1/1/99 with (L–R) music editor Robert Baird, then-publisher Larry Archibald, and editor John Atkinson. Wes is survived by his wife Joan. We will post more information as it becomes available.

The news is not simply that Best Buy/Magnolia stores' 82 Hi-Resolution Listening Stations which they developed in the US in conjunction with Sony, have proven so successful, and generated so much interest in hi-res, that the company has added 250 more listening locations around the country. It's also that we now have data that shows a major reason for the expansion: Far more people care about sound quality than many would have you believe.

Rudy Van Gelder, pioneer recording engineer, creator of "the Blue Note sound" (and the many sounds that imitated it through the years), died at the age of 91 this week. Every true jazz fan and true audiophile has grown to venerate Van Gelder—at least the work he did in the 1950s and '60s for the innovative labels of the day: not just Blue Note but also Prestige, Impulse!, Riverside, New Jazz, and scattered others.

Almost 20 years separate the First and Second Violin Concertos of Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953), but they share a language of such ravishing beauty and unexpected transitions that they seem like first cousins. Among their many recordings, violinist Vadim Gluzman reading with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ENSO) under Neeme Järvi's on a BIS hybrid SACD, entitled Prokofiev • Violin Concertos, Etc, easily holds its own against classic recordings by Heifetz, Milstein, and, more recently, Vengerov with Rostropovich.