home entertainment 2007

Thumbs down from Max
Editor:
In the January issue, there was what
appeared to be an exhaustive discussion of
Blu-ray vs HD DVD (“Inventing the
Future—Properly,” p.63). There was much
technical information, as well as the background
for the development of these two
mediums.
Nowhere was it mentioned that none of
the hardware so far offers a way of using
our SACD discs, or the DVD-Audio discs
that we have accumulated over recent
years. Sony, in particular, should be castigated
for having abandoned the SACD medium.
There are many audiophiles whose living
spaces will not accommodate both a
theater room and a decent place for the
quiet enjoyment of music. For many, our
equipment must be capable of both functions—watching
movies and listening to
multichannel sound.
The old phrase caveat emptor comes to
mind. Max Young
Richmond VA
ppat.young@comcast.net
Thumbs up from Fred
Editor:
In my review of Dwight Twilley’s Live All
Access in the March issue (p.129), I noted
some audio flaws (eg, two-second gaps
between songs) plaguing the disc. Prior to
filing my review I had contacted the label,
Digital Music Group, inquiring about the
problem. I received acknowledgment of
my e-mail, but then heard nothing more
from them. Lo and behold, in mid-February
the label sent out replacement copies of
the CD, along with a note indicating that
there had been a manufacturing defect in
the pressing. By that point, however, the
review had already appeared in print. I
wanted to alert Stereophile’s readers that
with the flaw-free Twilley CD now in
stores, it gets an unqualified thumbs-up
from this reviewer. Fred Mills
Asheville, NC
Fmills123@yahoo.com
Thumbs down from Christopher
Editor:
Thank you for publishing Donald C.
Bingaman’s letter in January (“The Fate of
the High End,” p.17), which you should
have framed and displayed in a prominent
area of your offices.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
But I would like to specifically condemn
your anti-SACD policies, which are helping
to doom the recording industry, which
should have adopted the SACD a long time
ago as the standard process for the reproduction
of music. Instead of nit-picking about
conceivable high-end behavior that only
mathematicians might find of interest, you
continue to promote old “Red Book” technology
over the obviously superior SACD.
A more subtle example of your attempt
to ignore, if not inter, SACD occurs in the
same issue: when NAD announces its Masters
Series components, the M3 integrated
amplifier and the M5 SACD/CD player.
You review the former in January, yet fail
to even mention the latter’s existence, synergy
be damned.
Your continued shabby treatment of
classical music in general, coupled with
your anti-SACD bias, will take a fatal drubbing
if you ever get around to reviewing
Iván Fischer’s fabulous recording of Mahler’s
Symphony 2. No fair-minded person will
ever again be able to maintain “Red Book”
CD technology as being equal to SACD’s.
The time has come for you to stop living
in the past (except for SACD’s ability to
extract the ultimate from the great RCA and
Mercury recordings of the 1950s and ’60s in
a far better way than the dry, ludicrously
overpriced JVC XRCDs ever could) and
move forward. Stop wasting your readers’
time with $100,000 turntables and such. We
deserve better. Christopher Mankiewicz
mank@roadrunner.com
I think what you see, Mr. Mankiewicz, is not an
editorial policy imposed from above, but the editorial
bias of some Stereophile writers. I agree with
you about the perceived lack of enthusiasm for promoting
this excellent medium in the pages of
Stereophile, and I am often annoyed and frustrated
that SACD and its multichannel capabilities
are ignored in our reviews of equipment with
those capabilities.
But looking at Stereophile’s website Forum
and at other audiophile forums on the Net, I see
the same posture among readers. There is a pervasive
unwillingness of the tradition-bound audiophile
to accept this multichannel medium. Part of
the problem, as I have mentioned before in
Stereophile, is the lack of decent and available
demonstrations at high-end retailers, who usually
have only dedicated multichannel home theater
and two-channel music facilities. Part of the problem
is simple inertia—we all have large physical,
financial, and emotional investments in our present
setups. But some of it is an unwillingness to be
open to a listening experience that goes beyond
one’s long-term listening paradigm.
John Curl recently exhumed the following quote
from a mid-1960s letter to Stereophile, originally
published in Vol.1 No.4: “Sirs: I say that stereo is a
first class fake and the biggest fraud ever put out by
American Mfr. I have never found anyone who
knows audio engineering or music that did not agree
with this. All those who disagree just don’t know
enough to know the truth or they are liars engaged
in selling stereo equipment. The only reason that
most people have gone for stereo is that they have not
had time, and will not take the time to get all the
facts, so they are victims of advertising, the biggest con
game in the world, and I am not so sure that they
don’t deserve what they get.” Substitute multichannel
SACD for stereo and this letter characterizes the
opinions of many of today’s audiophiles (including,
probably, some Stereophile writers).
So keep on complaining about this, Mr.
Mankiewicz. I will, too. Kal Rubinson,
“Music in the Round”
For the record, Iván Fischer’s recording of Mahler’s
Symphony 2 was named by Jason Serinus as a
“Record 2 Die 4” in February 2007 (p.82), and
KR himself reviews it in this issue’s “Recordings in
the Round” (p.40). —Ed.
Try KEXP
Editor:
Re: Wes Phillips’ “As We See it” in February,
there is a great radio station here in
Seattle: KEXP 90.3 FM (KEXP.org on the
Web). It may be one of the best stations in
the country. Their call sign is “Where the
Music Matters.”
It’s not formatted; the knowledgeable
DJs program their own music, and even
take requests. The station streams live and
uncompressed signal at 1.4Mbps, so you
can listen anywhere in the world. They
broadcast over 400 bands live last year, and
have them archived to listen to any time.
They have a real-time playlist that tells you
the song playing, artist, and album title,
and has links to where you can order it
online. It goes back to 2001, so you can
look up any song played since then. They
do podcasts, album reviews, and have specialty
shows.
Try them out; you won’t be disappointed.
Dennis Gaughran
Seattle, WA
dgaughran@qwest.net
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www.Stereophile.com, May 2007 9