Every month Stereophile magazine offers authoritative reviews, informed recommendations, helpful advice, and controversial opinions, all stemming from the revolutionary idea that audio components should be judged on how they reproduce music.
THERE ARE AS MANY OPINIONS AS THERE ARE EXPERTS THIS ISSUE: For reviewers, the whole is greater than the sum of a product’s individual parts. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.—WILLIAM BRUCE CAMERON, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963) I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings—WALT WHITMAN, “That Music Always Round Me,” from Leaves of Grass These two statements, to me, express the core perspective shared by Stereophile’s contributors. When I encountered both of them within a span of 30 days, they spoke so strongly that I felt impelled to hook up the biggest, baddest loudspeakers I could find and broadcast them to the world, without distortion. Failing in that…
Turning off the kids Editor: I would like to point out one item that I think might be holding some younger folks from the hobby: Some items in the “hard core” audiophile community can be perilously close to snake oil. Today’s kids are savvy. They aren’t gonna go for “directional Ethernet cables.” There can be 10,000 great audiophile products on the market, but if a kid reads one compelling article debunking, say, the likes of an “audiophile SDcard,” they will sour on the whole concept of high-end audio. No hobby is immune to these kind of things, but the audiophile marketplace seems to have elevated it to an art form. —Fletcher Chambers fletcher.c.chambers@comcast.net Turning on future generations Editor: I am a lapsed Stereophile reader, first exposed to your publication in…
SUBMISSIONS: Those promoting audio-related seminars, shows, and meetings should e-mail the when, where, and who to JAtkinson@enthusiastnetwork.com at least eight weeks before the month of the event. The deadline for the March 2017 issue is December 20, 2016. THE INTERNET Paul Messenger Geoff Hill1 has written a book: How to Design and Specify High Quality Loudspeakers: Loudspeaker Design Made Simple! It costs a not-inconsiderable £82.99 ($92.99 US) because each copy is printed to order. It consists of 348 pages in A4 format (11.5" by 8"), with 33 chapters and 13 appendices. I’ve known Geoff Hill for some 40 years—ever since the beginning of the Impulse speaker brand that he cofounded—so I’m not the person to review his book, though I can describe its basic structure and approach. Early on, in…
ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophilesocieties. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event CALIFORNIA ❚ Sunday, January 22, 1–4pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting, presented by San Diego’s Alma Music and Audio in the beautiful Penthouse Ballroom of the Holiday Inn Buena Park (7000 Beach Boulevard). The acoustics are excellent, and there will be seating for all. Our host, Fabio Storelli of Alma Music and Audio, will demonstrate examples of top-of-theline equipment, including: speakers…
Built for Comfort AUDIO RESEARCH REFERENCE PHONO 3 PHONO PREAMPLIFIER Audio Research’s Reference Phono 3 phono preamplifier replaces their Reference Phono 2SE, and represents a modest but significant redesign of the circuit as well as complete cosmetic and systemic upgrades. However, the price has increased only $1000, from $13,000 to $14,000.1 BUILT FOR COMFORT: Using the same substantial casing and industrial design as the Reference 6 preamplifier, which I reviewed in the December 2016 issue, the Reference Phono 3 is a large, user-friendly, tubed phono stage with an easy-to-read, green fluorescent display of generous size. Below that are six big pushbuttons—labeled Power, Menu, Option, Enter, Input, and Mute—that will take you anywhere you want to go on your phonographic journey. The Phono 3 has two independently configurable inputs, either of…
As I began writing this column, the terrible news arrived that Armando “AJ” Conti, founder of Basis Audio, had died of a heart attack at 59. A talented designer of turntables and tonearms, AJ was one of the warmest and more thoughtful people in the High End. Whenever I entered the Basis room at a Consumer Electronics Show, I had to be prepared to spend the next hour or more talking with AJ—not only about audio, but about coffee, motorcycling, metallurgy, or any other of his many passions. After I’d reviewed, in the January 2000 issue, AJ’s Basis Debut Mk.V turntable— about which I’d been less than 100% positive—our relationship grew strained for a few years.1 AJ, a perfectionist, had expected nothing less than a perfect review. But I’d had…
