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Listening #196
The world's a place of horrorsBecause each man thinks he's rightLoudon Wainwright III As a teen, I loved spending time in musical-instrument shops. Now, with exceptions, the experience is reliably...
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Listening #197: Simon Brown & The Wand tonearm
There's a noise I make when I'm having trouble with something inanimate: a deep, growly huff that starts in my diaphragm and comes out in one or two quick, staccato bursts. I huff this huff when I drop...
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Listening #198: IsoAcoustics & Audio-Creative
It's a toss-up: The house where my family and I lived for 15 years was bigger than the one we have now, and had a much nicer view. On the other hand, we now live in a less economically depressed...
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Listening #199: Falcon & Graham LS3/5A
It all started when I moved my playback system from my 11' by 16' living room to my 12' by 17' family room: The latter has proven the better-sounding setting, and it's also sunnier and more...
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Listening #200: Tzar DST1 & Shindo Montille CV 391
Products come and go. Some impress more than others, and in our little world, the ones that impress the most wind up in Class A of our semiannual "Recommended Components" feature. After a product makes...
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Listening #201: the Buddha Bearing
This is a story about a $1375 commercial turntable accessory and a free tweakthe latter discovered while installing the former, although the two things exist quite independently of one another. Here's...
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Listening #202: Altec 604 & Audio MusiKraft Denon DL-103
Godzilla and I are precisely the same age: We were both born in 1954, Godzilla as an expression of the postwar fears of a nation uniquely aware of the horrors of nuclear armaments, I as an expression...
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Listening #203
"Let's get real, real gone for a change."Elvis I. As Plato mentioned in The Sophist and thousands of art historians have noted in the years since, Greek sculptors distorted the human figure by...
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Listening #204: the New Garrard 301
Some loss of innocence is expected with both age and experience. Because I tick both boxes, and in spite of my best efforts to the contrary, I'm often a bit blasé in the face of new review samples. I...
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Listening #205: John Fahey, Naim NAC 32-5, Naim NAP 250
During my first attempt at college, I lived in a dormitory where my next- door neighbors had an informal trade in pharmaceuticals; their most ardent customers were my neighbors across the hall. One of...
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Listening #206: Shindo Cortese amplifier
Only recently did I learn that successive generations of the Chevrolet Corvette are referred to by the cognoscenti with two-character alpha-numeric identifiers: C1, C2, C3, and so on. I learned this...
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Listening #207
The stars are matter. We are matter. But it doesn't matter.Don Van VlietOnly sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.T.S. Eliot (writing about Djuna Barnes's Nightwood) In the 17th...
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Listening #208: Rogers LS3/5a
In my January 2020 Listening column, I wrote about a place where three things overlap: the joys (and benefits) of being a record collector, the natural tendency to grow and challenge ourselves as...
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Listening #209: Luxman CL-1000 preamplifier
It may come as no surprise that the two Recommended Components issues we publish every year, in April and October, are Stereophile's most popular. Both go hand-in-hand with increases in single-copy...
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Listening 210: Guns N' Neuroses, the Life of a Used-Gear Specialist
During the years I lived in New York City and environs, I never learned my way around Brooklynsomething I now regret, given that borough's emergence as a hotbed of audio creativity: our industry's...
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