LATEST ADDITIONS

Distribution and format chaos may reign, but the music prevails. What is your pick for <I>new</I> album of 2009 (no reissues please)?

<i>Where did I hide that Replacements record, dammit?</i>

Oh yeah: <a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/12/09/this-christmas-just-g… having a holiday sale.

The face was different, but the look was familiar. It should have been. The $2395 Aria Mk.III is a close cousin to the Aria II that I'd hung around with for about two years. Same sense of style, same heart of tubes. CAL Audio apparently made it what it is today, from the ground up. They even designed its transport and transport-drive circuitry in-house (footnote 1). In a high-end world which has gone increasingly to separate digital processors, CAL has been, up till now, a conspicuous holdout. They've only recently introduced their first outboard converter, and have in the past argued in favor of the all-in-one player. Something about reduced jitter from all the timing circuits being under one roof.

<I>Stereophile</I> has released its 2009 "Products of the Year" (<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/istereophileis_products_of_2009/">a… to the website last week</A>). The reviewers and editors have made their choices, so what is yours?

Have you read <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_way_we_listen_now/">that<…;, yet? Okay, now read this: “<a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/116282-reconsidering-the-revival-o… the Revival of Cassette Tape Culture</a>,” by PopMatters’ Calum Marsh.

Every once in a while, and particularly around the first of the year, news writers (of which I am one) get the urge to play oracle, laying our credibilities on the line by attempting to divine what the coming year will bring. Since I am writing this at the end of January, the chances of my miscalling my shots have already been reduced by a factor of 0.083. But there are still 11 months to go, and some possibility that a prediction or two may be wrong. Nonetheless, I shall intrepidly grab the bull by the horns, the crystal by the ball, and the opportunity of the moment to take an educated guess at what the rest of 1988 holds for audio.