A stable of Stereophile scribes covered the legendary Spica TC-50 loudspeaker back in the mid- to late '80s. We've compiled comments from Anthony H. Cordesman, J. Gordon Holt, Larry Archibald, Martin Colloms, and John Atkinson for your reading pleasure. See…
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For his review of the diminutive Acarian Systems Alón Petite loudspeaker, Wes Phillips explains that the "li'l guys frequently image like bandits—which some of us just can't resist." Also included is Robert J. Reina's followup review of Alón's matching PW-1 woofer system, from February 1997, along with his take on the Alón Petite.
Sam Tellig triggered a hailstorm of comment with his original review of the RadioShack Optimus CD-3400 portable CD player. After Tellig suggested that the modest player just might be a cheapskate audiophile delight, writers Corey Greenberg, Jack English, John Atkinson, Barry Willis, and Robert Harley each added his two cents. Some revealing but hitherto unpublished measurements are also included.
John Atkinson learned how easy it is to make a wrong assumption as he drove through Connecticut and discovered the forest among So Many Trees!. So what do assumptions about millions of trees…
One of the more intriguing discussions we had at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was with Jim Weil of Berkeley, CA–based Sound Application.
The company's line conditioners have been well-reviewed and have been endorsed by a number of the industry's luminaries, including engineer Tim De Paravacini and loudspeaker designers Alan Yun and Albert Von Schweikert. Mobile Fidelity's Shawn Britten uses Sound Application devices for high-resolution mastering, and CBS has them installed in its Studio Center listening room. Once dismissed by old school engineers as snake oil, AC line…
When a manufacturer makes extraordinary claims about a product, the result is sometimes an extraordinary review. That's what happened when Jonathan Scull examined the Richard Gray's Power Company 400S AC line conditioner last June. His report raised a chorus of reader and industry reactions, all of them included here along with some additional unpublished observations.
With the August 2000 issue, Stereophile bids farewell to its home of 22 years, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and, like Ma and Pa Kettle, packs up the wagon (with cats and dog) and heads for the bright lights and big city. John…
For years, we've seen attempts to disguise loudspeakers as paintings. A pair of announcements last week highlights the ongoing drive within the consumer electronics industry to find new ways to hide speakers within other objects.
NEC is introducing what it is calling the world's first personal computer equipped with an LCD monitor that also functions as a speaker. The company says it will start shipping the new machine for the Japanese market starting this week.
The new laptop comes with a 17"-wide LCD screen that delivers video and also generates sounds, "creating a theatrical…
"Size does matter," John Atkinson discovers, as he fits the Shure E3c in-ear headphones into his ears. Once fitted, JA hooks the mini "cans" up to his iPod and PowerBook to discover how much audiophile sound a little set of ear buds can produce.
Art Dudley notes in "Listening #17" that "literally everything in the DNM 3-C preamplifier that isn't meant to conduct electricity is made of plastic." AD listens to the 3-C as well as the DNM PA3-S power amplifier to uncover the sonic attributes of the company's uncommon designs.
Kalman Rubinson takes two multichannel disc players for a spin…
Music fans are mourning the passing of swing era giant Lionel Hampton. The vibraphonist, band leader, and multi-instrumentalist died August 31 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan of complications from age and a recent heart attack, according to his manager Phil Leshin. Hampton was 94.
A percussionist who was adept at both drums and piano, Hampton was the first major jazz musician to master the vibraphone, an electronic instrument based on the marimba and the xylophone, an instrument he had played as a student. His "flamboyant mastery" of the vibes, in the words of the New York…
In Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, the evil overlord's favorite torture was to introduce carnivorous worms into the ear canals of his prisoners. No one who saw the film can forget the agony of the victims, who gradually went insane as the worms ate through their brains.
Khan's hideous little creatures are not unlike the annoying snippets of pop songs that get lodged in your head and won't go away—so much so that German music fans have adopted the term "ohrwurm" (earworm) to describe the phenomenon.
Recently a Dartmouth research team applied the tools of science to this universal malady…
The last week of July was a busy one for music-industry attorneys—and, by some measures, a successful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won a round in its fight against Napster, a San Mateo, California–based software company that enables the sharing of MP3 music files over the Internet. On that day, in a US Federal court in San Francisco, Judge Marilyn Patel decreed that the widespread sharing of music using Napster was a form of wholesale copyright violation, and ordered the service shut down effective…
Music lovers who availed themselves of MP3.com's uploading-archiving-and-accessing services are about to become the next target market for the music industry. Nearing the end of protracted litigation brought against it by the music industry's "Big Five," the online music venture has announced a marketing service that will promote new commercial recordings directly to its users through e-mails. The recordings will be on labels under the control of MP3.com's opponents in the year-long copyright wrangle.
The first sample to go out to MP3.com users will be "Free," a song by the rock band Vast…