Judging by last week's results, industrial design clearly matters to many readers when it comes to audio products. So it raises the question: Has there ever been an audio product that you did not buy because of how it looked?
<A HREF="http://www.bluecircle.com">Blue Circle Audio</A>, the Ontario-based company that has championed the use of "no frills" packaging and solar powered devices, recently issued the latest addition to its line of minimal cosmetics audiophile products. The <A HREF="http://www.bluecircle.com/index.php?page_id=9573">BC301FY preamplifier</A>, which looks nothing like other companies' products, dispenses with the standard aluminum or steel box, engraved logo, designer controls, and other cosmetic frills. Housed in nine ABS cans—a type of heavy-duty plastic commonly encountered in drainage and sewer piping—its packaging is said to reduce consumer cost by over 40%.
Steve Kuhn’s new CD, <I>Mostly Coltrane</I> (on the ECM label), has no business working, but it does, for the most part really well.
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If you like freak shows, then the current travails of the Republican Party are incredibly sweet. Marc Sanford’s <I>“I’m gonna try and fall back in love with my wife”</I> nonsense [need dental work? try repeating that one to your wife?], Palin’s rambling, basketball–and–dead fish–laden resignation speech, and now the pride of Long Island, U. S. Rep. Peter King, calling Michael Jackson names on the day before he is buried. “Lowlife,” “pedophile,” “child molester,” oh yeah, King hit `em all. The run of bad news on Jackson is about to begin again—his toxicology report is gonna cause a circus, not to mention the end of several medical careers—so I’m thinking King coulda waited a day or two before giving us another dose of some righteous Republican extolling the heroism of firefighters, cops and soldiers. The fact that all three of those professions are paying gigs—no one is being drafted lately—is clearly beside the point for King. And okay, we all know Jackson had some unhealthy sides to his life, but couldn’t King have waited a day or so before becoming a new hero to the haters in the Republican Party. The appetites for hating and hypocrisy in the GOP are apparently insatiable. I loved it when one of King's colleagues questioned whether this outburst would help or hurt King by saying that it might help if has a lot of racists in his district.
<B>Allen Toussaint: <I>The Bright Mississippi</I></B><BR>
Nonesuch 480380-2 (CD). 2009. Joe Henry, prod.; Kevin Killen, eng.; Anthony Ruotolo, asst. eng. AAD? TT: 61:31<BR>
Performance ****½<BR>
Sonics ****
I love two-channel stereo. A great stereo recording can produce such a full-bodied, three-dimensional soundstage that surround sound seems superfluous. Multichannel is just peachy for home theater, but good ol' stereo suits music just fine, thanks very much.
In a blog comment, reader Henry writes "I won't buy a component that does not look right . . . . It needs to have a look like someone cared deeply about the appearance of the thing as a function of performance." <P> Does a component's industrial design matter to you? How much?
And now for something completely different.
Before launching into <I>Stereophile</I>'s first-ever report on a Mark Levinson product, an important point needs to be clarified. Although Mark Levinson products were originally made by Mark Levinson, they are no longer. <I>Au contraire</I>, Mark Levinson products are now being made by Madrigal, Ltd., which bought Mark Levinson Audio Systems' assets and trademark two years ago. Mark Levinson's products, as distinguished from Mark Levinson products, are now being manufactured by a company called Cello. But the subject of this report, the Mark Levinson ML-7A preamplifier, is a product of Madrigal, Ltd., not of Cello. Now that I've made that all perfectly clear, we may proceed.