Ariel Bitran

Here at the Stereophile office, we listen to lots of different tunes ranging from Bach to Fucked Up to Sylvester, but in the Bitran/Mejias cubicle, there has been a recent resurgence in our passion for POPULAR music.

When we first started posting, the Stereophile team was unsure of what would be the result. Would more people buy Attention Screen CDs? Would we get more members to our forums? Or would we just be totally ignored?

A Spotify advertisement interrupts my listening. The ad is invisible, embedded in between the lines of my play queue. As it begins, a modern crooner soars over a twinkling piano. This is not the 311 I was just listening to. A voice very politely interrupts: “Hi, this is Bruno Mars.”

I need my riffage! Not ads!

Seconds later, a reminder pops up in my Microsoft Outlook program: “Rdio”

Lifestyle brand. Let me say it again: Lifestyle brand. Did you just shudder a little? This term terrifies many audiophiles, because for many audiophiles, calling a hi-fi brand a “lifestyle brand” equals a focus on marketing rather than sound. Yet, on the eve of Thursday, October 6th, in a presentation to members of the hi-fi press at the Savant House in the SOHO district of New York City, McIntosh President Charlie Randall comforted us with the news that this would not be the path for McIntosh.

For the past few months, my system has been in a serious playback rut. The disc tray on my Oppo DV-980H does not pop out, and my Rega P1 is in unmistakably poor shape: the tonearm cable to connect the tonearm to the cartridge ripped off from the tonearm, one of the tonearm pins ripped off the tonearm cable and is firmly pinned onto the cartridge I never installed (an Audio Technica AT95E), and the needle on my old Ortofon cartridge is bent backwards, which is the reason why I needed to change my cartridge to begin with. I promise, I have reasons for all of this. Not good reasons. Thus, most of my music listening for the past seven months, has been done at work in my cubicle via different digital music streaming services, in the hopes of finding a service that would be fun and functional.

Following that record, I tuned in to Luciano by Luciano Pavarotti, also found in the trash. Pavarotti sang with impact and the timpani were a joy.

"Ain't it strange how sounds can let you down / When you're waiting for the one you love."