When I finished high school, all I wanted to do was work in a fancy, well-equipped shop building drag race engines. Engine building was something I had already shown a talent for, but my parents insisted I go to college. Unfortunately, my high school grade point average was so low I was turned down by every college I applied to. Consequently, my parents forced me to attend Wright Junior College in Chicago, a place where teachers rolled joints for their students. And I got straight A's. Those easy A's got me into Western Illinois University, a small state college in a tiny rural town called Macomb near the Mississippi River. My mother was so proud, she told everybody she knew that her son was accepted into "university," but she could never remember which one.
I enrolled at WIU as a physics/chemistry major, but during my first week of my first semester, I was banned from the physics department and put on disciplinary probation for allegedly assaulting a lab assistant with a red laser. And for parking my Camaro in the Dean's spot.
Around that time, a tall student with shoulder-length hair approached me after a performance of a Samuel Beckett play in the school's posh theater. His first words were, "Are you into plays?" I said, "I like reading plays. I read this one in high school. But I've never before seen a play in a real theater like this one." Then he asked, "What do you know about art?" Whereupon I explained, "My mother's an artist, and she took me to a lot of art museums. But I think art is stupid."
"That's perfect," he said, "Because I am the editor of the school newspaper, and I am appointing you to be the art and drama critic. Here's my office number-can you give me a short, written review of this play by tomorrow afternoon?" I told him, "I can't write, so I never write. I pay people to write my class papers. But I'll give this a try because I do have some thoughts about the performance."
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Esta historia es de la edición December 2024 de Stereophile.
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German kitchens, Japanese amps, and Afropop gems
BRILLIANT CORNERS - I have a day job at a museum. One of my favorite things about working there is taking the elevator from my office down to one of the floors open to the public; I walk into the galleries through a discreet panel in the wall. This makes me feel like I'm in one of those horror-movie manors with a tunnel concealed behind a bookshelf. Sometimes I startle people, which I kind of enjoy.
EDITOR'S PICK - RECORDING OF THE MONTH
The record business was awash in money and power. Vinyl LPs were still five bucks, and while the pressings could be suspect, the music-buying public still snapped them up en masse.
The Butthole Surfers wipe out
REVINYLIZATION - Music's lunatic fringe drifts further out every hour. As it should. In this century, with computers playing an ever-larger role, music continues to fragment and become infinitely more varied. This splintering is either the essence of what keeps it relevant as an art form or something profoundly disturbing, to be hated and feared.
You're only lonely
AURAL ROBERT - The least surprising story in music today is the inevitable passing of irreplaceable talent. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson died at age 95 the day I finished this salute to another fallen star, Southern California singer/songwriter John David \"JD\" Souther.
PS Audio Aspen FR5 - LOUDSPEAKER
I remember the first PS Audio product: a simple phono stage. It was so simple - a passive RIAA eq filter flanked by a pair of primitive op-amps - that when the schematic was made public, I built one myself; I was in the midst of my DIY years. I thought it was, to use a word from that time, nifty.
TEAC UD-701N - STREAMING PREAMP, D/A CONVERTER
In Gramophone Dreams #88, I described the sound of TEAC's VRDS-701T CD transport as \"dense and precise in a way I had never previously heard from digital.\" I went on to explain, \"by dense, I mean there was a tangible corporeality effected by seemingly infinite quantities of small, tightly packed molecules of musical information.\"
Sonus faber Sonetto V G2 - LOUDSPEAKER
Here's a hard truth: A written review of a full-sized speaker any speaker, really-is, at best, semi-useful. We all listen differently, we have different musical tastes, our system electronics are different, and our listening rooms vary a lot. You will gain a general picture of a speaker's capabilities and foibles from John Atkinson's measurements, and I can tell you how the speakers sound to me, in my room. But that's it. You need to hear them for yourself before making a buying decision. The best I can do is tell you how my music brain felt when the speakers were in my house and making music.
STEREOPHILE'S 33RD ANNUAL - PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
When Stereophile's Product of the Year Awards were first published, in 1992, we decided that unlike some other publications and their awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum. That way, we would avoid what the late Art Dudley once described as the \"every child in the class gets a prize\" syndrome.
Moon 861 - POWER AMPLIFIER
It is unusual to begin a review with a detailed discussion of setup. But setup protocol for the Moon 861 power amplifier ($22,000 each), the top-level amplifier in the North Collection from Moon, which I reviewed bridged in mono, proved crucial to its sound.
Mobile Fidelity, PrimaLuna, and First Watt redux
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - It's important for readers to remember that I've spent my adult life as an artist and mechanic. Making things. Working as a tradesperson during the day then at an easel or workbench at night.
