LATEST ADDITIONS

It was a quarter to five on the last day of the show, and I was feeling good. I mentioned this to John Atkinson. He was sitting there beside me. The bus was empty but for us. We were waiting to go back to our hotel, waiting to leave the noise and smoke and lights of the crowded, extravagant Venetian. The place is madness. All of Vegas is madness.

<B>NEIL YOUNG: <I>Chrome Dreams II</I></B><BR>
Reprise 311932-2 (CD). 2007. Neil Young, prod.; Niko Bolas, prod., eng.; John Hausmann, Rob Clark, Brent Walton, Tim McColm, Colin Suzuki, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 66:17<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****

In my last blog, I referred to “my friend, the pianist Frank Kimbrough,” so some of you may be leery when I tell you in this entry that Kimbrough’s new CD, and his first solo work, <I>Air</I> (on Palmetto Records), is a terrific piece of work, one of the half-dozen or so great solo piano albums of the past few years. If your suspicions keep you from checking it out, well, your loss.

In yesterday's <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/wesphillips/011307ces/">philippic about CES's petty annoyances</A>, I said that I continue to be a recidivist in spite of them. The reason? Pretty much that the high-end portion of the industry remains a fascinating, personal, and essentially civilized place.

As I wrote in this space last month, test-equipment manufacturer Audio Precision has loaned Stereophile a sample of their top-of-the-line SYS2722 system, which has both significantly greater resolution and greater bandwidth than the Audio Precision System One Dual Domain we have been using since 1989. The reviews you can read in this issue include the first measurements I have performed with this impressive piece of gear, though there are still a number of graphs I produced using our System One. In fact, with the equipment I tested using the SYS2722, I performed duplicate sets of measurements using both the System One and the Miller Audio Research QC Suite in order to get a handle on how close the three systems agreed. (They did on the tests where the SYS2722's improved resolution was not a factor.)

The shoes are now dropping all over the place. We have previously reported that Warner Music Group had dropped DRM on its downloads, <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/123107warner/">joining</A&gt; Amazon.com's Download store. Ten days ago, we also reported that Sony BMG had announced <I>it</I> was <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/010508sonybmg/">dropping DRM</A>, although it declined to release any distribution details at the time.

It must be the week after the Consumer Electronics Show: I'm all written out on consumer electronics, my feet hurt, and I have a cold. All three happen every year.

Throughout 2006 and much of 2007, we got the feeling at Stereophile that most audiophiles were scoffing at the idea of a music server in their system.

I think it's now official: moving the high-performance audio exhibits last year from the Alexis Park to the Venetian has been a complete success. The sound in the tower rooms has been excellent, and exhibitors seem to be finding ways to tame the more problematic acoustics of the large conference rooms on the third floor. And whenever you wanted to take a break, you were only a few steps away from the fake-but-surprisingly-convincing ambience of St. Mark's Square, where it's always early evening, and you don't need an excuse to have some gelato. Ciao!

Another CES under our belts, and there were new audiophile products galore. What new product at CES caught your eye (or ears)?