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.
One of my coolest radio-related experiences happened just a few months ago, when, churning through FM stations in my car, I encountered a country-inflected male voice singing “Fast Car,” the Tracy Chapman song. Rolling Stone dubbed “Fast Car” the 168th best song of all time. It has audiophile cred because its simple sonics (predominantly voice and acoustic guitar) and good engineering made it an important test track, used, eg, by Harman for listening tests and by others for assessing compression artifacts in MP3s. I have written before—and it’s inarguable—that nearly every aspect of uniquely American music emerged from African-American culture: blues, jazz, rock’n’roll, hip-hop. I was born in Alabama and raised in the south, where during my childhood such influences were rarely acknowledged. Elvis was spoken of as the founder…
Keep it up, Stereophile! I have subscribed to Stereophile since 2017 and recently wrote my first letter to the editor. The letter was regarding Alex Halberstadt’s excellent article about Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. The main reason for the letter was my delight in reading about country artists in Stereophile, which, Mr. Halberstadt pointed out, is a rare thing. To my utter surprise and joy, in your April issue I found a piece about Guy Clark by Robert Baird—specifically, Guy’s first album, Old No. 1. Guy and John Prine are my two favorite musicians. I would have loved to have been in the store with Mr. Baird as he spoke with the salesperson as well as customers about Guy and other outlaws of country music. Stereophile, I hope articles about…
PAUL MESSENGER (1949–2024) Stereophile Staff As last month’s issue went to press, we learned the sad news that longtime Stereophile contributing editor Paul Messenger had died after a long illness. Messenger also wrote for and edited Stereophile sibling publications Hi-Fi News and Hi-Fi Choice and for Martin Colloms’s HiFiCritic, among others. He was Stereophile’s UK correspondent for the Industry Update section from 1998 until his death on March 6, 2024; in that role, he eulogized in these pages many important figures in British and European hi-fi including Dieter Burmester, Audio Research’s William Zane Johnson, Naim’s Julian Vereker, and John Wright, who developed the first commercial transmission-line loudspeakers. While serving as editor, Messenger hired John Atkinson at Hi-Fi News, in 1976, setting JA’s career on its course and indirectly impacting the…
ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, email Chris Vogel at vgl@cfl.rr.com. (Please note the new email address.) It is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless it is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA ❚ June 7–9, 2024: T.H.E. Show SoCal hosts their hi-fi show once again in Costa Mesa at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa. In addition to hi-fi exhibits, there are seminars, a “Headphonium,” luxury cars with high-performance audio systems, and live music acts. For more information, visit theshownow.com. ❚ Friday evenings, 5–7pm PST: The San Francisco Audiophile Society hosts a virtual happy hour via Zoom. This is…
In the months since I told my Lenco story in Gramophone Dreams #79, two of my friends have bought L75s, and now they’re enjoying them more than their shiny movie-star decks. One told me he has put more than $2000 into a Lenco L75 he bought online for $350. When I asked how his hot-rodded Lenco compared to his fancy belt drive, he replied, “You can feel it. The Lenco’s motor pulls like a team of Clydesdales. It makes my belt drive feel like a pony pulling a child’s cart.” When I asked him what he thought his rebuilt Clydesdale deck, with its new bearing, Jelco tonearm, and Grado Prestige Gold cartridge, was doing that his well-regarded belt drive was not, he replied, in a low, serious voice, “I think…
Last May, during a visit to High End Munich, I was ushered into an exhibitor’s room with much ceremony. Other showgoers had been shooed out so that I, a reviewer at an important magazine, could listen to the hi-fi undisturbed. The room featured obelisk-shaped “statement” speakers, monoblocks with enough tubes to light a cafeteria, and a wedding cake–sized turntable, all connected with python-thick cables. All of it cost as much as a starter house in coastal Connecticut. The room’s proprietor asked me to choose from a small stack of LPs. I went for Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else, a wonderful Miles Davis record in all but name. I know it as well as any other piece of recorded music. When the system began to play, it was doing all the audiophile…
