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"And how long have you felt this way about audio components?" my therapist asked. His pen scratched on his notepad.

"Gosh, it seems like forever. My mother told me I would nurse only if she sat down with me next to Dad's old Garrard record changer while it churned through a stack of LPs."

"Hmmmm." He paused, then resumed writing.

"Hey, Doc? Is there anything to drink around here?"

Sometimes I think audiophiles are crazy. If the point of it all is our love of music, we often forget that the brain is where it happens—not…

Rare indeed is the audiophile who has not experienced—at least momentarily—the strong desire to make a high-quality recording of something. Many audiophiles are not only music lovers, but musical amateurs as well, or at least have family members or friends who sing or play an…

Schoeps microphones, Denecke AD-20 preamplifier-converter, and The New Stereo Soundbook, Second Edition, available from: Jerry Bruck, Posthorn Recordings, Inc., 142 W. 26th St., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Tel: (212) 242-3737.

Audio-Technica AT-825 stereo microphone, Sony PCM-R300 DAT recorder, K&M KM-201A2 microphone stand, Avenger AVG-A635B light stand, Sony MDR-7506 headphones, custom Canare digital cable, Tascam DA-P1 portable DAT recorder, Sony CDR-W33 CD recorder, and Marantz Professional PSD-300 CD-R recorder available from: Markertek, 4 High St.,…

The Audio Engineering Society held its 95th Convention in New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center in October 1993. The gathering is both a trade show for introducing new recording products and a forum for audio scientists presenting papers describing their research. Stereophile has found AES Conventions essential to keeping up with what's happening at the cutting edge of audio technology. Consequently, John Atkinson and I spent four days at the New York Convention, with Larry Archibald dropping by for a few papers and exhibits. Peter…

Until now, developers and reviewers of perceptual coders have relied only on listening tests, because conventional measurements provide little guidance. At the New York AES convention two new methods were demonstrated that can provide valuable information about audible flaws in low-bit-rate coders. Both operate on the same principle as the perceptual coders themselves—namely, the concept of "masking" in critical bands (see later).

The cochlea of the inner ear behaves as a bio-mechanical spectrum analyzer. A tone at any frequency…

This struggle is often in full force when I venture into the…