Stereophile March 2015

THIS ISSUE: it’s a thorny question: what music should exhibitors at audio shows play? THERE ARE AS MANY OPINIONS AS THERE ARE EXPERTS To put it mildly, Jack Vad was dismayed. The Grammy Award–winning media producer and chief engineer for the San Francisco Symphony had just returned from the 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest,1 and was trying to make sense of his experiences there. When he’d carried his latest recordings, which I think are superbly recorded, into rooms at the show and asked if he could play them, exhibitors were anything but enthusiastic. Vad, who at RMAF 2014 also appeared in an “Experts Ask the Experts” panel discussion, and presented formal demos of the same recordings in the Parasound and Sony rooms, had brought along a flash drive containing high-resolution…

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. Swords into plowshares (part 634) Editor: A little DIY audio from the heartland (be sure the primer has been fred before proceeding): http://tinyurl.com/nmdatkh. —Robert Mason Woodside, NY bobmason666@gmail.com Home alone? Editor: I understand the message in Steve Guttenberg’s “As We See It” in January 2015 (p.3), but I want to share an alternative view. I regularly go to the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s concerts. The SSO has a new, state-of-the-art venue, Benaroya Hall, and the acoustics are to die for. I sit in the center about 7 to…

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 April 2015 issue is January 20, 2015. 12 YEARS OF “RECOMMENDED COMPONENTS” John Atkinson “Recommended Components” has been Stereophile’s most popular feature since its first appearance, in the fifth issue of the magazine. Fifty-two years later, we’ve put together a special issue: Stereophile Recommended Components Collector’s Edition. While the regular “Recommended Components” listings in our April and October issues concentrate on products that have been reviewed in the previous three years, this special 180-page issue features capsule reviews of every audio component that has been reviewed and recommended by Stereophile’s team of writers and editors in the 12 years…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated 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. ARIZONA ■ Wednesday, February 25, 7pm: The Arizona Audio-Video Club will hold its monthly meeting at the Marriott Airport Hotel (1101 N. 44th Street, Phoenix). The meeting will feature demonstrations of Unison Research vacuum-tube electronics and Axis VoiceBox S speakers by Colleen Cardas and Marc Phillips, of Colleen Cardas Imports. Guests are welcome and refreshments will be served. For more info, visit www.azavclub.org, or contact Adam Goldfine at goldfneam@aol.com or (602)…

THIS ISSUE: Listening impressions of the Kiseki Purpleheart N.S. phono cartridge and the Lamm LP 2.1 phono preamplifier. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, Herman van den Dungen handed me a surprise: a brand new Kiseki Blue cartridge manufactured from new-old-stock parts. It wasn’t mine to take home—only to look at, to prove it was real. Herman van den Dungen may not be a household name even for audiophiles, but his products are: his PrimaLuna electronics are exported from the Netherlands to the US and distributed by tube connoisseur and collector Kevin Deal for PrimaLuna USA. In the 1980s, Kiseki was legendary among audiophiles, even if their cartridges’ prices were beyond the reach of most. But the brand’s history is less well known—and younger analog devotees may not have heard…

THIS ISSUE: The Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner is put through its paces. It’s a Clean Machine I’m old enough to remember Fizzies: tablets that were promised to transform mere water into an effervescent soft drink. They showed up on my radar when I was five, at a time when impatience stood between me and the full Fizzies experience: I couldn’t wait for the Bromo-Seltzer–like tablet to dissolve completely, so I was rewarded with little favor and lots of undissolved sugar shards. At my present age, I would be likelier to drop a Fizzie into a glass of water, walk away, and forget I had ever done so. Fizzies came to mind the first time I used the Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner ($4450), a sample of which was loaned to me…