John Atkinson (left) and Richard Lehnert (right) in RL's house in May 2011, the day before RL moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Ashland, Oregon. (Photo: Susannah Tyrrell)
In this memoir, Stereophile's copyeditor of 34 years breaks most of the rules he ever learned or imposed on writers. It is too long. It rambles. It's repetitive. It lacks organization. It's repetitive and many sentences are longer if not shorter than they should be, there are run-ons. Other sentences incomplete. The syntax often odd is. Dangling before your very eyes, I misplace modifiers. Worst of all, this piece is…
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Worldly success and career fulfillment had never been part of my life plan. I'd never had a life plan. I'd washed dishes, worked at a natural food store and herb farm, run a blueline machine in a blueprint shop, laundered shirts, been a cook in a French restaurant, studied Native American herbology, managed a kite kiosk in a mall, been a night sexton at a church, studied and spent a few years as an actor (never quite a good one), and through it all had filled thousands of sheets of paper with awful novels and stories and poems. In short, I had a B.A. in English Literature. Becoming a…
This is how the highest level of copyediting can be an invisible art, a Zen in the Art of Editing in which all traces of the thoroughgoing work that has been done are erased in the very doing of that work. To such a response from such a writer, I quickly learned to smile and say only, "Well, great. I'm glad you like it." I've always been a self-taught copyeditor, but it was at Stereophile that I was most and longest encouraged to continue teaching myself how to do the job even better. Most of the writers with whose writing I succeeded never knew. The writers whom I've failed know all too…
Leute, High End München 2019 ist der große Audio-Zirkus.
You're stuck in America reading nightmare-news and you think high-end audio is dying because it’s all old men, and the dealers all carry the same stuff, and there is nothing new since MQA? I'm sorry, but that's so provincial of you. And embarrassing. You need to get out more.
Honestly, Were you to visit Munich today and experience just the crazy amount of High End 2019 signage—it’s in the airport, and along the highway, and in the cabs!—you would realize that this is truly the Greatest (audio) Show on Earth. This is the…
The show wasn't open yet. The booths weren't finished being built. I was walking alone, and there were no audio people anywhere. But as soon as I saw it, I froze and pulled out my camera. It's not hammertone gray. It's not a grease-bearing. But it was here in front of me.
I'm pretty sure I got the first picture of the new SME-manufactured Garrard 301 turntable. Over the years I've owned a few of these classic British idler-drive turntables—but never one with shiny cream paint and pristine molded knobs like this. Years ago I bought several of them, straight out of broadcast…
From my first room at High End Munich: Some actual news: A new SACD player from Mark Levinson.
True—SACD still exists, supported by a small but enthusiastic niche of audiophiles, many of whom buy every new SACD that's released—which, lets face it, isn't that many silver discs.
Which is why it's so surprising that Levinson or any high-end company would release a new SACD player. The No.5101 will join the No.5805 ($8500; review forthcoming in the July Stereophile) and No.5802 integrated amplifiers in Levinson's affordable 5000 series. In addition to playing discs, the No.5101 will…
I'm sitting in the Alluxity room next to Joseph Audio's Jeff Joseph and wondering how his new graphene-cone Perspective2 loudspeakers ($14,999/pair) can sound so big and solid and transparent when they're so far apart. I'm looking for the hole in the middle, or at least a fuzzy-creamy center, but I can't find it. All I can "see" are the solid, accurately described voices of singers like Ella and Elvis.
Then, via the Alluxity Pre Two preamp-DAC-streamer, I hear a high-resolution file of some big drums, made from a Crystal Clear Direct to Disc LP. I turn to Jeff and say, "Something…
The South Korean company Silbatone manufactures exquisite pure tube and hybrid audio amplification that's specifically engineered to be un-conventional, un-compromised, and un-affordable. About that last characteristic: It's un-affordable because it's not for sale—and everyone knows you have to pay extra for stuff that's not for sale. Right?
Silbatone also collects—and demonstrates, at audio shows—un-obtainable vintage Western Electric movie-theater equipment. To my knowledge, Silbatone's museum-quality WE tube and horn speaker collection has no equal in either completeness or condition.…
Just some tonearm sweetness from Thales. Photo taken through a window. Enjoy.
As Michael Fremer, Paul Messenger, and I were searching for the High End press room, one of several echt German pop-up entertainments surfaced in the lobby. Whether taken as local culture or kitsch depends upon one's point of view; for me, it was a rare opportunity to experience a live reference in an open setting—and preparation for systems designed to reproduce that very experience.