Stereophile Staff

With car audio, background streaming, and iPods, there are plenty of choices for listening to music when away from your main system. Do you save your main system only for special occasions or does it dominate your audio life?

Pacific Northwest audio retailer Definitive Audio is holding its sixth Music Matters, "A Night of the Best in 2-Channel Audio," this coming Wednesday (February 9) at its Seattle location (6206 Roosevelt Way NE) from 5–10pm.

Appearing in person and each giving presentations lasting 30 minutes, will be representatives from Audio Research, Ayre Acoustics, B&W, Classé, Finite Elemente, GoldenEar, Harmonic Resolution, Linn, Meridian, Peachtree Audio, Transparent, and Wilson Audio, while Stereophile editor John Atkinson will be demonstrating the benefits of high-resolution audio and the evils of MP3, using the master files of some of his recordings.

Other highlights of Music Matters 6 will include the world debut of the new B&W PM1 Prestige Monitor loudspeaker, presented by its designer, Dr. John Dibb; Meridian's new DSP 3200 digital active bookshelf speaker system and the Media Core 200 digital music system; as well as the new VX-R stereo amplifier from Ayre. Audio Research will debut the Reference Anniversary Preamplifier; and Linn’s Gilad Tiefenbrun will introduce the updated Akurate DS system. Classé’s Dave Nauber will debut the new CP-800 digital preamplifier; HRS will present the MXR Reference stand; Transparent Audio’s Transparent’s Josh Clark and Karen Sumner will transport the audience in a musical time machine with a wide variety of music genres—classical, blues, jazz, rock, and contemporary independent music; and Sandy Gross of GoldenEar will demonstrate the Triton Two loudspeakers, which impressed the heck out of Stereophile's scribes at the 2011 CES.

Seating is limited, please RSVP to (206) 524-6633 or on-line at www.definitive.com. Light hors d'oeuvres & refreshments will be served.

It's always revealing to see exactly what music people have sitting on their shelves or hard drives. It tells you a lot about them—whether they're kindred spirits (Bill Evans) or something less (Sting). In many ways, our annual "Records To Die For" feature is a kind of mini-window into the musical souls of our contributing editors; may the Gods of Song bless their tortured souls, every one. In the past, such choices as the soundtrack album for the movie Casper have raised eyebrows, if not outright suspicion. Still, along with crowing about our favorite records, we try to keep it all in good fun. What's the title of Stephen Mejias's excellent blog at www.sterophile.com—"Elements of Our Enthusiasm"? Well then, here are some of those precious elements that feed that enthusiasm. Remember: Gear ain't great without something to play on it.—Robert Baird

Classical music retailer Arkivmusic.com is making available for download this holiday season four CDs from John Marks Records: the three Rejoice! A String Quartet Christmas CDs and Songs My Mother Taught Me, from violinist Arturo Delmoni and some of his friends.

Click through for a free FLAC download.

Headphones have always offered a private listening island, without distraction for you or those around you. And with iPods impact, the variety of headphone products has gone through the roof.

Vote to see the results and then set up an account to leave a comment about your choice.

Extremes of cost and performance continue to impress. But plenty of high-performance products can be had for very little money as well. With all of this, is high-end audio moving in the right direction?

A crime of passion? Depraved indifference to the importance of tuneage? Death by music? The simple fact is that most audiophiles got that way by having too many records. That's right&#151;very few got into this rewarding, non-contact sport because they were aroused by shiny brushed-steel boxes or supersexy speaker grilles. It's because they wanted to hear their piles of music&#151;their Mahler, Monk, or Rick James&#151;sound the best it could. (And, okay, yes: It <I>is</I> cool to show drooling friends your designer gear.)