LATEST ADDITIONS

Joanna Newsom: Divers
Drag City DC561 (LP/CD). 2015. Joanna Newsom, prod.; Noah Georgeson, prod., eng.; Steve Albini, eng.; John Golden, mastering. ADA/ADD. TT: 51:56
Performance *****
Sonics ****

It's hard to imagine a more auspicious debut than Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City DC263): Her songs on that 2004 release were imaginative, memorable, and almost uniquely literate, and her performances of them—she sang as distinctively as she wrote, and on most of them, her full-size Lyon & Healy concert harp was the sole accompanying instrument—were effective and thoroughly charming. At the age of 22, Newsom had created one of the most original pop records in memory.

Thursday–Friday, November 19–20, 4–8pm; Saturday, November 21, 10am–3pm: Signature Audio Video (126 Iber Road, Stittsville, ON) will hold their 2015 Technology Expo.

Friday–Saturday, November 20–21, 10am–8pm: Electronic Concepts (174 Route 17 North, Rochelle Park) will host a special event to celebrate the launch of the new Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 Series loudspeakers. Also on display will be B&W's legendary Nautilus loudspeakers. Other featured gear will include Classé electronics and AudioQuest cables.

YG's cute Carmel 2 speaker is featured on the new issue's cover and is exhaustively reviewed by John Atkinson inside. But the meat in our December issue is our annual "Products of the Year," where the magazine's writers and editors vote for the products that impressed them the most in the past year. There are some surprises, not the least of which is the great showing made by some very affordable components.

But wait, there's more...

Why didn’t sets like this appear when CD as a format still had a vital future?

The EAD DSP-1000 III is housed in a 2.5" high, U-shaped chassis with a brushed-aluminum front panel. The cover is made of solid, 1/10"-thick steel with a nice "powder" finish, giving the unit an expensive feel. A pushbutton standby switch sitting below a green LED indicator sits at the panel's left. Even when set to Off, power is maintained for the decoder's circuits, but the digital inputs and analog outputs are muted. To the right, three pushbuttons allow selection of one of the three digital input sources (TosLink, 750 ohm coaxial, or glass optical interface). Like the EAD DSP-7000 unit reviewed by J. Gordon Holt and Steven Stone (Vol.18 Nos.1 & 5), the DSP-1000 accepts any of the three sampling rates: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, or 48kHz. Toward panel center is a lock light that illuminates when a digital data link is established. HDCD decoding occurs automatically whenever an HDCD disc is played, causing the front-panel HDCD indicator to light. No remote is available for this decoder.