Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2015 i Stereophile

We all have secrets, and it’s about time I came clean with one of mine: I enjoy recorded music more than concerts. I know, that’s a sacrilege—as a lifelong music lover, I’m supposed to relish the live event, with all of the energy and connection between musicians and audience that can happen only when they’re all breathing the same air. That may be true for you, but not for me. I’ve harbored the guilt for years: When I take the plunge and attend a concert, I rarely enjoy the experience enough to justify the effort and expense. My sense of guilt is magnified when the music is great and I’m still not feeling it, for any number of reasons: I’m too hot or too cold; the sound system is too…

THIS ISSUE: the Loudness War is over (if you want it) In the 2014 November issue, my good friend Steve Guttenberg (“Communication Breakdown,” p.3) got his facts mostly right: It’s true that most listeners (including myself) accept far more distortion today than we did years ago. Many people have never heard a great stereo system—all they’ve heard are overdriven boom boxes, cheap stereos, and portable systems, and that’s what they expect systems and music to sound like. And distortion is part of the sonic language of such musical genres as hip-hop, rap, and alternative rock. Technically speaking, distortion is compression is distortion is compression. You can’t have one without the other: compression reduces peaks, and a distorted waveform has fewer peaks than a clean one. However, Steve missed the important…

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. Preaching to the choir Editor: Sadly, I suspect that Art Dudley’s excellent “Listening” column in November (p.43) exemplifies preaching to the choir. Judging by the anger a single review can generate, surely a whole issue of Stereophile must trigger fatal apoplexy in the measurement trolls. Even so, let this choir member sing hallelujah, because, ironically, there is nothing scientific about the common belief that “any observation that doesn’t fit into my theory must be delusional.” Au contraire, the progress of science is almost totally dependent on observations…

THIS ISSUE: Pear Audio Analogue, Sibatech, Auralic, Simaudio, Sjöfn Hifi, And Monitor Audio Comment On Our Reviews Of Their Products. Pear Audio Analogue Blue Kid Thomas & Cornet 2 Editor: We want to thank Stereophile and Michael Fremer for his extensive and insightful review and for his many compliments to and high praise of Tom Fletcher’s final turntable design, the Kid Thomas. We are gratified that Fremer found the Kid Thomas to be ideal for jazz, classical, and female voices, since that was the music Fletcher listened to while designing it. Fletcher always wanted to provide extraordinary musical experience without an extreme price tag. We are pleased that Fremer recognized the Kid Thomas’s high value in today’s turntable market, along with its smooth and evenly balanced sound and its very…

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 audiosociety 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 ❚ Thursday, January 15, 7–10pm: Audio Vision of San Francisco (1628 California Street) will host an evening with Moon by Simaudio, Audio Physic, Woo Audio, Abyss, MrSpeakers, and Nordost at its new and improved location on the historical Cable Car line, in downtown San Francisco. Featured products will include the Moon Neo 430HA headphone amplifier and Neo 380D DSD DAC, the Audio Physic Avantera Plus loudspeakers, Woo Audio’s WA5…