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A Week in the Life of Listening, Part 4

Friday
With the Buyer's Guide coming to a roaring end, I couldn't wait to relax over the weekend. I told Stephen that I could work on Saturday, but he insisted on being the coolest boss ever and told me to go home and listen to music.

To celebrate my Buyer's Guide freedom, I played Rush's Hemispheres. Though not one of my favorite Rush albums, on vinyl, the album has particular intensity not captured on CD: an aggressiveness, a rip-roaring tear through the seams of rock'n'roll. Alex Lifeson's guitar is huge and demanding. He adds so much presence and girth to the power trio.…

Cold Weather & USB Phono Preamps

Alright, it's cold now. Mr. G says the mercury will only creep up to around the 38- or 39-degree mark today. I guess it's to be expected. We are deep into November. New York City in the cold, with all of the wreaths and lights and scarves and frigid breath, is beautiful. For a moment or two, that is, until I remember how much I hate this weather. It's funny, too, how I forget how unbearable it can be in my apartment this time of year. I don't know how I've lived through the last three winters in that old, drafty shack.

I shouldn't complain. I know I am lucky to even have a…

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Vol.19 No.3 (March 1996)

Vol.17 No.10

Vol.17 No.10 (October 1994)

Vol.17 No.2

Vol.17 No.2 (February 1994)

On Newsstands Now: <i>Stereophile</i>, Vol.31 No.12 (December 2008)

Dear readers,
You can find our December 2008 issue on newsstands now.

I am proud of this issue for many reasons, just as I am proud of every issue for many reasons, but I want to focus on the December issue's cover. Next to President-elect Obama on the October 30th issue of Rolling Stone and Megan Fox on the October 2008 issue of GQ, it is my favorite cover of the year. We saved the best for last, I feel. I love the color combination; it never would have occurred to me to match orange with this particular shade of purple, but I think it works very well&#151it is…

Don Byron's <I>Bug Music</I>

Last Friday at the Jazz Standard, I saw clarinetist Don Byron play compositions from his 1996 Bug Music, maybe his greatest album, certainly one of the most exciting jazz albums of that decade. It features music from the ‘30s by John Kirby, Raymond Scott, and Duke Ellington—an era largely neglected by jazz musicians and historians.

Byron says the title “Bug Music” comes from an old episode of The Flintstones, in which Fred, Wilma, and all the other cavemen and women of Bedford are nauseated by the new “Bug Music with them four insects”—a parody at the time of the Beatles. Just as most…