Stereophile October 2014

God Lives in the Details THIS ISSUE: Must we measure? Yes we must! Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “If you work in either journalism or politics . . . you will be fogged for being right and fogged for being wrong.” I was reminded of Thompson’s words when I read a forum post on our website (http://tinyurl. com/n75c8ul). “Why is Stereophile way behind the other magazines?” asked “rs350z,” explaining that, among things, he objected to Stereophile’s supporting its reviews with measurements. “why waste the ink on doing measurements on each product reviewed,” he wrote, with a disregard for capital letters. “There is no need to. I don’t care if the distortion is 0.00005 or 0.00007, nor do i care about all of the other tests you do. What i care about is…

FEEDBACK TO THE EDITOR 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. It’s in the timing Editor: To the New York audiophile community: For reasons that should be self-evident, the preeminent New York City specialist audio retailers listed below will not be participating in the 2014 New York Audio Show (September 26–28), which is scheduled to begin on the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah Andrew Singer, Sound by Singer, Ltd. Joshua Cohn, EarsNova David Wasserman, Stereo Exchange It’s in the listening Editor: In regard to Mr. Goldfinger’s letter in the August Stereophile (p.11), I see no contradiction between Art [Dudley]’s personal taste and…

AUDIO NEWS & VIEWS 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 December 2014 issue is September 20, 2014. THE WEB John Atkinson This issue includes the latest update of Stereophile’s popular “Recommended Components listing, starting on p.58 and running for 36 information-packed pages. Even then, however, we did not have space this month for all the product categories. The full version of the 2014 “Recommended Components” can be found on the magazine’s website, www.stereophile.com. UK: BIGGLESWADE, BEDFORDSHIRE Paul Messenger Before setting up the photo shoot for its new headquarters, near Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, the Professional Monitor Company Ltd., aka PMC, had to put away the croquet mallets. At the end of 2013, the…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely 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 28, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at Shelley’s Stereo & Video’s newly expanded location in Woodland Hills (22102 Clarendon Street). This meeting will be all about planarmagnetic speakers and headphones. The full line of Magnepan Inc.’s planar-magnetic speakers will be available for audition using a variety of electronics and sources, and fans of personal audio will be able to sample…

Transfguration Unchained! THIS ISSUE: The Proteus moving-coil cartridge. I’ve lost track of how many Transfiguration cartridges I’ve reviewed over the years. In all that time I’ve never met their designer, Immutable Music’s Seiji Yoshioka, but every year he sends me an exceptionally tasteful holiday greeting card. I’ve never reciprocated. The truth isn’t always pretty. The Transfiguration cartridges I’ve reviewed, too, have always conveyed a midrange musical truth that hasn’t been flashy or pretty. But it’s always been honest and convincing, particularly of the reality of voices. If you said that the Transfiurations lacked character, you wouldn’t be wrong— unless you intended it as a criticism. Transfiguration cartridges have always been more about getting out of the way than about making a “beautiful sound” of one flavor or another. Despite the many Transfigurations I’ve auditioned,…

French spines and German arms THIS ISSUE: Reissues done with care and respect, and a new tonearm for Art’s Linn. “. . . with faithfully replicated artwork.” That’s how a press release, dated June 16 of this year, described the manner in which the next wave of Beatles LPs—mono releases claimed to be mastered direct from the original analog mixdown tapes, and not the 44.1kHz digital files that Apple Records and Universal Music Enterprises (which now owns EMI) considered good enough for their last wave of Beatles LPs—are being packaged for sale. Hope, as Emily Dickinson once observed, is that thing with the feathers. Which, as we all know, evolved from the dinosaurs. Those new mono LPs, available as individual albums and as part of a lavish boxed set, should hit the shelves…