Oscar Pettiford is one of the least-remembered great jazz musicians, a pioneer of bebop who played bass with the top bands of the 1940s, switched to cello after an arm injury at the end of the decade, then plowed on at the top of his game till he died in 1960. The cello never ascended to the mantle of standard jazz instruments (which may account for Pettiford's unjust obscurity), but Erik Friedlander stands as its greatest champion, so no wonder that, for his 18th album as a leader, at the age of 55, he's finally recorded a tribute to the master.

YG's cute Carmel 2 speaker is featured on the new issue's cover and is exhaustively reviewed by John Atkinson inside. But the meat in our December issue is our annual "Products of the Year," where the magazine's writers and editors vote for the products that impressed them the most in the past year. There are some surprises, not the least of which is the great showing made by some very affordable components.

But wait, there's more...

At some point within the last few years of his life, the late Ken Shindo designed an outboard phono preamplifier—a decision perhaps made inevitable by his earlier decision to answer popular demand with line-only versions of the Aurieges and the more upmarket Vosne-Romanee preamps...

Why didn’t sets like this appear when CD as a format still had a vital future?