Stereophile Oct-13

The Pursuit of Audio Excellence THIS ISSUE: One listener describes his audiophile odyssey. At the time of my August 2011 “As We See It” (see www.stereophile.com/content/i-am-audiophile), I was using a Wilson-McIntosh system. That system is still with me and still gets quite a bit of use. Its location, however, has changed. In its place is a system that I can’t see switching out or needing to replace: Wilson Alexandria XLF speakers with VTL Siegfried Series II Reference monoblock power amps, TL-7.5 Series III Reference preamplifier, and TP-6.5 Signature phono stage. This system has taken my listening sessions to an entirely different level. Over the many hours I have spent sitting in front of it, I have been trying to articulate what that means. I think that when one climbs to…

TAKE HEED! Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possible publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. The tragedy of the commons Editor: Regarding John Atkinson’s “As We See It” essay in July, where he wrote, “To survive, audio retailers need to be farmers, not fishermen,” it’s hard to be a farmer when the fishermen continuously eat your crop the minute the sprouts break the surface of the soil. We need to help our retailers stay in business. If we allow the fishermen to fish the oceans to extinction, the farmers will not be able to grow enough to feed us. Thank goodness crème…

SUBMISSIONS: Those promoting audio-related seminars, shows, and meetings should e-mail the when, where, and who to stephen. mejias@sorc.com at least eight weeks before the month of the event. The deadline for the December 2013 issue is September 27, 2013. USA: NEW YORK John Atkinson Stereophile’s owner, Source Interlink Media (SIM), announced last May that it had acquired Sound+Vision magazine from Bonnier Corporation. S&V was formed in 2000 when its then owner, Hachette Filipacchi, merged Stereo Review, Video, and Audio magazines. Stereo Review was first published in 1958 by Ziff-Davis as HiFi and Music Review. It was renamed HiFi/Stereo Review in 1961, then plain Stereo Review in 1968, and absorbed High Fidelity magazine in 1989 (see http://tinyurl.com/lkht2lq). On July 22, SIM announced that it was merging Sound & Vision with Stereophile’s…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@vcable.us. 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, September 15, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at Audio High (605 N. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles). Audio High’s David Fallica will demonstrate the new, Mark Levinson–designed Daniel Hertz M1 loudspeaker system; and Joe Kubala, president of Kubala-Sosna, will demonstrate his loudspeaker cables. Eastwind Import will be on hand to sell LPs and CDs, a raffle is planned,…

Blue, Blue, His Teeth Are Blue THIS ISSUE: Sam compares CDs with Bluetooth audio using Musical Fidelity’s M1SDAC and M1CDT. But first, how I spent my summer vacation. Maksim is always underfoot. Our cat is always getting tripped over or stepped on. I had long thought that, someday, Maksim would bring me to my knees. Instead, I did it to myself. Preparing dinner shoeless, I tripped over the sock dangling loosely from my left foot. I collapsed to the floor, my ankle broken in two places. Five days in the hospital, followed by nearly two months in a nursing home. Bingo, anyone? HodgePodge? Jokes galore? Jeopardy? Wheel of Fortune? Between sessions of physical therapy, I fled to a leafy courtyard with my iPhone and B&W P3 “mobile headphones.” I saved…

THIS ISSUE: Mikey on the DSA Phono II preamplifier and moving-coil cartridges from Miyajima Labs and Stein Music. Shortly after the July 2013 issue of Stereophile hit the newsstands, I received an e-mail from audio restoration expert Doug Pomeroy, who specializes in the digital preservation of disc pressing metal parts, acetates, and 78s. (For an example of his excellent work, see www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/arts/music/17jazz.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.) I first spoke with Pomeroy in 2001, for a story about digital audio published in a Village Voice music supplement. His and my opinions about digital sound couldn’t be more divergent. Pomeroy’s experience dwarfs mine, but I haven’t budged from my opinions about digital in the 12 years since. I’ll give you a quick example why: I just played 24-bit/96kHz files of Tom Waits’s Bad As Me on…