LATEST ADDITIONS

The new high gloss, high performance <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/708rega/">Rega P3-24 turntable</a> complete with TT-PSU power supply (sold as an option with standard finish P3s) is now available. The updated P3 was a big winner in our <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/">Products of the Year</a> celebration, taking home awards for both <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/index3.html">Analog Source of the Year</a> and <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/index7.html">Budget Component of the Year</a>.

Times are hard. Our current economic landscape bears more than a passing resemblance to that darkest of American nightmares, the Great Depression. As I write this, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a $700 billion bailout plan to buy distressed mortgages and thereby offer a crutch to our ailing financial system. Times are hard, yet we persevere. Though we may lack some discretionary income, we find ways to maintain the essentials: food, clothing, shelter, and, for audiophiles, music. So for a short while at least, let's put aside our struggles and lighten up. After all, this great hobby of ours is meant to be fun, and is supposed to cure any depression. Let's celebrate music, and those wonderful audio components that bring us closest to it.

John Lennon left the planet 28 years ago today. I have a hard time contemplating that without tearing up.

Multi-channel music releases may have slowed to a trickle, but with home theater still going strong, reader Greg Abarr is curious: "How many people use their systems for both two-channel and 5.1 or 7.1?"

"So what are you doing this Friday?" my father asked, trying to elicit information I could tell he already knew.

If I had to pick one amplifier designer as having had the greatest continuing influence on the high-end market, as much as I admire John Curl, Audio Research's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/894z">Bill Johnson</A>, and Krell's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1203dagostino">Dan D'Agostino</A>, the name of <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11661">David Hafler</A> inexorably springs to mind. Not because he challenged the very frontiers of hi-fi sound, but because he combined a fertile, creative mind (footnote 1) with a need to bring good sound to as wide an audience as possible, both by making his products relatively inexpensive and by making them available as kits. (The Major Armstrong Foundation apparently agrees with me&#151;they presented David with their "Man of High Fidelity" award at the summer 1988 CES.) It remains to be seen if the Hafler company will continue in this tradition, now that David has sold it to Rockford-Fosgate. But there is no doubt that many audiophiles were first made aware of the possibilities of high-end sound by Hafler products in the late '70s, and by Dynaco in the '60s.

<I>The Phantom of the Opera</I>: Original Canadian Cast</I><BR>
Jeffrey Huard, cond.; Andrew Lloyd Webber, music; Charles Hart, lyrics; Richard Stilgoe, additional lyrics<BR>
PolyGram 847 689-1 (LP), -2 (CD*). Martin Levan, David Caddick, prods.; Martin Levan, eng. DDA/DDD. TTs: 57:03, 69:45*