Jim Austin

As John Atkinson reported in the October Stereophile (see Industry Update), the FTC recently announced a revision to the "Amplifier Rule," with changes that took effect in August. It's the culmination of a process that lasted several years and a significant modification of a rule that has been in place for half a century. Amplifier manufacturers take note. Then in mid-August, the FTC announced the final version of a new rule aimed at banning fake reviews and fake product testimonials. It also forbids companies from intimidating people engaging in critical speech.

In the August issue's As We See It, Tom Fine and I encouraged readers to hold on to their physical media—those black and silver discs—even if they're stashed away in a closet or attic, replaced by hi-rez streaming. An important reason we gave is that with physical media (in contrast to streaming), you know exactly what you're listening to—or at least you can know, with a little work.

Also if you want to, you can do a lot of work, since there is much to know and to learn, especially about vinyl records (and shellacs), and learning about them—about the labels and those arcane codes in the runout groove area—is a big part of the music-collecting hobby. Serious record collectors are likely to have several pressings of favorite albums and to know the provenance of each one. With streaming, you're limited to whichever version they end up with, and usually they don't bother to tell you which version it is. An example is Rock for Light by Bad Brains, which is considered by Robert Baird in this month's Aural Robert.

Pass Labs has a lot of owner's manuals online. Reading through one, I encountered the following passage; you'll find the same or similar language in other manuals and on the Pass Labs website. I present it not only because I admire it and agree with the philosophy it expresses but also because it captures the spirit of the product under review—the XP-27 phono preamplifier ($12,075 in silver)—at least as I've experienced it during an extended review period. Here it is, quoted at length with some slight adjustments to make it consistent with Stereophile's editorial style...

When the CD is gone, and it will be soon, we'll miss it. New CD releases are winding down (footnote 1). In the classical world, the era of big, bargain-priced boxes of CDs—a somewhat recent development—is ending because, after a long, slow descent, retail sales have fallen off a cliff in the past year or so. In pop and rock, if you discover a new band you like, you may or may not be able to buy a CD. Perhaps they'll self-publish a few to sell at concerts; there's a better chance they'll have LPs, assuming they can get time at a vinyl-mastering studio and a pressing plant, both of which are booked to the max. CDs, though, are an afterthought if they're even that.

Vinyl records will likely stay around indefinitely as a collector's artifact, but new CDs are fading fast. This is momentous. CD will be remembered as the last mainstream physical music format. Its passing marks the death of physical music media.