Jim Thiel co-founded THIEL Audio Products of Lexington, KY in 1976, and the company has grown to become one of the most respected manufacturers of loudspeakers in the world. Jim's passion for music and his interest in electronics can both be traced back to childhood, when he began a lifelong love affair with the piano and also began to build and repair radios and other electronic gear. His academic background in physics and mathematics along with his…
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We have just received the sad news that loudspeaker designer Jim Thiel has passed away. Following is the text of the official announcement:
Wilma Cozart Fine died Monday September 21 at age 82. Together with her husband Bob Fine, Cozart was responsible for producing and engineering Mercury's superb-sounding series of "Living Presence" classical recordings in the 1950s and '60s.
Wilma Cozart Fine started her career as conductor Antal Dorati's personal secretary. She became vice president of Mercury Records in 1954. She came out of retirement in the 1990s to produce again, this time to satisfy the demand for CD re-issues of the Mercury Living Presence LPs.
Mercury's initial series releases, made a year or two before Ms…
The sixth annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is about to get underway at the end of this week. Scheduled to take place October 2–4, at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, the largest high-end audio show in the US that's open to the public will offer 150 exhibit rooms packed with products from 479 companies. Despite the economic slowdown, at least 3500 audiophiles, the same number as last year, are expected to attend.
This year's RMAF has some especially enticing features. One is a 1000-square-foot expandable trailer from Harman International, in which two listening rooms will feature an array…
The Burning Amp Festival is almost upon us. The day-long DIY (do-it-yourself) love fest, held within yards of the San Francisco Bay, attracts a good 150 DIYers from around the world who engage in the annual ritual of demming their homemade gear for other avid audio enthusiasts.
Scheduled for Sunday, October 18 at Sausalito's Presidio Yacht Club near the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, the event has again been publicized on the over 100,000 member strong DIYAudio.com forum. The forum is international in scope—it began in Australia—meaning that Burning Amp is one of the few large-scale DIY…
The first chapter in the history of the LAST Factory, manufacturer of LAST Record Preservative for LPs, is coming to a close. After shepherding for 30 years the Livermore, California–based company he founded, LAST's president, Walter Davies, is retiring to devote his energies to still photography. With Jan and Ric Mancuso, of Trade Secrets Consulting, Davies is looking for a buyer to keep the company in operation.
Three LAST products—Record Preservative, StyLast Stylus Treatment, and their flagship Power Cleaner for LPs—have been listed in Stereophile's "Recommended Components" for many…
The people at Manhattan high-end audio retailer Stereo Exchange know how to throw a party. They proved it back in April with their Spring Fever event, and they look to surpass the success of that outstanding evening with their 25th Anniversary Celebration, this Thursday, November 5, from 3–9pm.
Representatives from several top audio manufacturers will be on hand to demonstrate their latest products and speak with guests. Featured products on display will include NAD's new M2 Direct Digital amplifier, Grado's top-of-the-line PS1000 headphones, Vienna Acoustics' The Music loudspeakers, and…
On November 19, Scottosh manufacturer Linn Products held a press conference in London to announce that it was forthwith ceasing the production of CD players, and effectively replacing them by its new DS-series "digital streaming" components in its product portfolio.
Such a bold and radical decision requires elaboration. As the first major specialist hi-fi brand to announce such an exit strategy, the shock value of the announcement is clearly designed attract maximum media publicity. But it's also very much a statement of intent, and represents Linn's firm belief that digital streaming…
The world's largest classical label, Naxos of America, has released its first Blu-ray music package. The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard contains three Blu-ray audio discs plus one three-hour Blu-ray videodisc that together hold 15 hours of music. All performances are by Tom Beghin, a baroque specialist and musicologist based at McGill University. Sound engineer Martha De Francisco, an Associate Professor at McGill, recorded the performances in high-resolution (24-bit/96kHz) PCM sound.
Beghin has recorded Haydn's music on seven modern replicas of historic keyboards ranging…
Back when there was still something called the "classical music industry," one of Stereophile's favorite small labels was John Marks Records, masterminded by the magazine's "The Fifth Element" columnist, John Marks. In fact, it was his recordings that first brought John to the magazine's attention. JMR had a phenomenal run of releases, among them Arturo Delmoni and Meg Bachman Vas's Songs My Mother Taught Me, Nathaniel Rosen's cycle of J.S. Bach's Suites for Solo Cello, Delmoni and Rosen's Music for a Glass Bead Game, and the three Rejoice recordings of Christmas music for string quartet (…
The "high-performance" sector of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, to be held January 7–10 at the Venetian Hotel, in economically downturned Las Vegas, promises an exciting array of new products for home and office. While the CES proper is open only to dealers, press, and the relatively few non-industry audiophiles who can wriggle their way in, Stereophile's intrepid bloggers promise to tell you just about everything worth talking about, via frequently updated show reports on our website.
This year's high-performance exhibitors number at least 274 (down from 353 last year), and are…