Some claim that FM radio for serious musical enjoyment is dead, while others say it is only sleeping. Certainly some of you have favorite music stations you listen to once in a while. Don't you?
Reader Dan Rust decides to rip open the can o' worms about audiophiles spending extra bucks on the wire in their systems. We're curious about your experiences: How important are speaker-cable and interconnect upgrades to you?
Recording and music production technology has seen enormous change in recent years. Engineers and producers now have unprecedented power to manipulate the tinest details in recordings using computers and other tools. But the process may be taking the life and soul out of music. Some feel that commercial recordings lack the spontaneity that makes live music so immediate and satisfying. Others prefer the "perfection."
In the January '98 <i>Stereophile</i>, Michael Zeugin of Audio Influx asserts that high-end audio is being sucked into a "Black Hole" for a variety of reasons. These include: goofy products, computers taking over the youth market, and boomers' limited income being channeled elsewhere. What do you think?
Bits <I>vs</I> atoms! The new frontier of audio distribution is said to include downloading recordings over the internet onto a CD or DVD recorder for a modest fee. We'll assume for the moment that bandwidth has improved to the point where this is not a painful process, and data compression is not needed. But the question remains: Are you a collector who wants the original disc, or do you just want the music fast and cheap?
DVD audio standards are still up in the air, but promise (hopefully) to come down soon. For our inaugural question, we want to know what you prefer: fewer channels and longer playing times, or multichannel high-quality sound with shorter playing times.