Jim Austin

Some Stereophile readers will surely remember—some may even have in their collections—Christian Marclay's 1985 vinyl release Record Without a Cover, surely one of the oddest records ever, right up there with the dying-rabbit record and the seven-inch single that's tinted yellow by the band's actual urine.

With the COVID-19–related cancelation of Munich High End and the postponement or cancelation of other national and regional audio shows, smaller, local events such as Seattle’s 15-year old Music Matters event, which returned to Definitive Audio Seattle on March 5–6, have gained importance—at least as long as they are able to avoid being shut down.

My first CD player was a Denon DCD-1800, the grandpappy of 'em all. It was big, clunky, and sounded like, well, you can read back issues to find out what it sounded like. But I was living in a fraternity house at the time, the kind of place where you wake up the next morning after a blow-out to find five plastic cups half full of stale margaritas merry-go-rounding on your turntable because whoever broke into your room during the party snapped your cartridge's cantilever off trying to hear the backwards messages on The Wall and decided to leave you an artistic message to buy a better needle next time, dude.

Earlier today, the Montreal Audiofest announced that it would either be postponed or canceled, becoming the latest coronavirus-related casualty.

Few would have predicted that the Sex Pistols' first gig—in November 1975, at the Saint Martin's School of Art in central London—would be the start of an explosion of music. Not many even knew it was happening. That soon changed. Punk would create a space that other bands rushed to fill. Inspired by the DIY ethos and the rejection of the notion that pop music had to be a 30-minute conceptual track on the lives of elves, punk was just grab an instrument and form a band.

Install a new component in your system and there's usually a period of adjustment as you get used to the difference in sound—especially if the new product costs much less than your reference. Channel D's new Lino C 2.0 balanced phono preamplifier costs $2499, yet my ears instantly accepted its combination of drop-dead, noise-free backgrounds and lack of obvious colorations or sonic personality. I didn't hear it—I heard only my Ortofon A95 cartridge, with which I'm well familiar, as amplified by far more costly phono preamps.

Monday, March 9, 2020 AXPONA, the largest audio expo in the Western hemisphere, has moved its dates at Chicago’s Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center to August 7–9.