Miscellaneous

Editor's Note: Published in 1998, this was the final review written by Stereophile's founder, the late J. Gordon Holt in the 37 years he was associated with the magazine. In it he expounds on his passion for experiencing recorded music in surround sound. Our continuing focus on two-channel products and recordings was one of the reasons Gordon eventually resigned, in August 1999.—John Atkinson

Introduced nearly eight years ago as the first recordable digital format for consumers, DAT both failed to appeal to its target market and was blocked from formally entering the USA for four years by the RIAA, who feared for the copyright of its members' recordings. However, the DAT medium was enthusiastically snapped up by professionals and semiprofessionals, who found its combination of reliability, CD-compatible signal format, and editing ease ideal for mastering. Sony currently offers a small range of consumer models, from the diminutive Walkman-sized TCD-D-7 DATMan to four-head cassette-deck–sized machines for the so-called "prosumer": amateur recordists who make pin money taping local concerts. The DTC-2000ES is Sony's latest entry (footnote 1).

Erick Lichte mentioned Totem Acoustic's Beak, which costs $125/pair, in his follow-up review of the Totem Forest loudspeaker in January 2010. The Beak is a bullet-shaped device, about 2" high by 1.5" in diameter, that's intended to be placed atop a speaker to control "parasitic resonances." I was given a pair of these more than 10 years ago, and have tried them with various speakers. While Erick didn't find the Beaks to make any difference to the sound of the Forests or any of the other speakers he had to hand, my experience was different.