LATEST ADDITIONS

Interestingly enough, this essay is <I>by</I> a woman. Sheesh, obviously only a guy would be qualified to handle this question. No, wait a minute, I 'm a guy and even <I>I</I> know better than to try to answer that one.

It's Johnny's birthday<BR>It's Johnny's birthday<BR>And we would like to wish him all the very best<BR>It's Johnny's birthday<BR>It's Johnny's birthday<BR>And it's so nice to have you back to be our guest.<BR><I>George Harrison: <B>All Things Must Pass</B></I>

Belt buckle? Jimminy Christmas, Sweet Couture is selling cassette tape belt buckles. It's $10 for a "We pick," $15 for your favorite brand. They don't offer <I>my</I> fave, the TDK-MAXG, however&mdash;which is a shame, because $15 wouldn't be an unreasonable price for one of those bad boys.

All we really want to hear from our systems is the music, but sometimes there is still a little unwanted noise tagging along for the ride. Do you have any humms, buzzes, or other unwanted noises emanating from your audio system? What do you do about it?

Oh boy! This was one of my most eagerly anticipated auditions. At my first demonstration of an OLS loudspeaker system several years ago, I was bowled over not only by the demo, but also by the idea that OLS's Kharma line was topped by the $1,000,000 Grand Enigma system!

Small enough to fit in a shoebox, these little darlings from England almost manage to redefine the state of the art in very compact monitor design (footnote 1). Here's a speaker that isn't as neutral as the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/361">BBC LS3/5a</A> compact monitor, but that does manage to equal or exceed that venerable design in most respects.

In the last issue we published a rather enthusiastic "Quickie" report on a small, $190/pair speaker system from a new company—the FMI Model 80. It was virtually devoid of low end, even as a stereo pair (pairing effectively doubles bass output), and slightly rough as well as a shade soft at the high end, but it had a quality of "aliveness" to it that almost defied belief. Was it a breakthrough in design? A new transducing principle? No, it was neither. In fact, the Model 80 looks like any one of those hundreds of little bookshelf systems that clutter, the pages of Stereo Review's "Hi-Fi Directory" in tedious profusion.