LATEST ADDITIONS

This pair of accomplished downers have a fiercely loyal following who like to get gothic.

Tuesday, November 10, 6–9pm: To celebrate the US dealer premiere of AudioQuest's Niagara 7000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System, Ultra Fidelis (7125 West North Avenue, Wauwatosa) will host an evening of music, hi-fi, and technology. Special guest Garth Powell, AudioQuest's Director of Power Products, will be on hand to provide a detailed discussion on AC power technology and demonstrate the Niagara 7000 (above).

We make our beginnings in the manner of our endings; so it was on Saturday morning, when I headed back to the Rye Brook Hilton's Maple Room, where Friday evening Michael Lavorgna, Steve Guttenberg, and I had spun ripping yarns of shipping labels and galley proofs on the high seas of audio reviewing. (Yarr.) I was there to hear a presentation called Great Sound: Beyond the Gear: Life and Technology: A Compromise—a title with more colons than a lower-GI specialist sees in a week!—by an audio engineer/designer/producer/acoustical consultant named Stuart Allyn. I was running a minute or two late, and when I opened the door to the Maple Room I saw: a capacity crowd. Wow!

And that set the tone for the rest of the day...

Outside of the listening I do for this column, I always audition, assess, and review components without using any equalization or room correction—primarily because I assume that most Stereophile readers listen in two-channel stereo, and that most aren't all that interested in EQ. Besides, two-channel is the tradition I come from, and my first instinct is to try to get at the essence of the individual component itself, without applying extraneous tools or accessories. John Atkinson's bench tests are based on the same philosophy.

UpTone Audio's USB Regen is a powered, single-port USB 2.0 hub that takes the USB signal from your computer, regenerates (ie, reclocks) the data, provides cleaned-up 5V power from a built-in, ultra–low-noise regulator, and sends an impedance-matched signal to your DAC. The Regen is designed to sit as close to your DAC as possible; UpTone supplies a male/male USB A/B adapter—a solid, double-ended plug, which they recommend over the 6"-long male/male USB A/B cable they also provide.

Tinseltown. La-La Land. Smell-A. First, of course, there's the climate. No way to hate sunshine and ocean breezes. And if you were somehow able to erase all the people in Southern California, the land itself—rising from the blue Pacific to high desert to timbered, sometimes even snowy mountaintops—is gorgeous. Then, of course, there's the unusually attractive human flora and fauna roaming SoCal. How did Brian Wilson put it . . . ? "Dolls by a palm tree in the sand."