LATEST ADDITIONS

Ceramic Dog's <i>Party Intellectuals</i> wins the award for Best Album of 2008 That I Never Wrote Anything About.

These days, weekends seem to last entire lifetimes. Is it the same for you? So much happens that has almost nothing to do with Monday through Friday.

Sorry to be a humbug, but it seems that Christmas is becoming a magnet for musician death. This year <B>Eartha Kitt, Robert Ward</B> and <B>Freddie Hubbard</B> all expired around the holiday.

Given the state of the economy, speculation abounds concerning major declines in the numbers of exhibitors and attendees at this year's audio/video shows in Las Vegas. If the advance numbers can be trusted, however, that will be anything but the case this January 8&#150;11, when the high-end audio exhibits of both the Consumer Electronics Show and T.H.E. Show will be open.

Will it be more of the same or is there a big development lurking around the corner? What are your audiophile predictions for 2009?

I'm sitting here in front of the trusty Toshiba 286 laptop on December 31, 1992, stuck with apparently incurable writer's block; in a couple of hours, we will be taking off <I>en famille</I> for the latest of Larry Archibald's legendary New Year's Eve parties. I wish I had something to write about for this month's "As We See It" essay; I wish...I wish...you know, there are a number of things I really wish for right now, yet I don't believe there is a component out there that can give me what I want.

I've got to agree with my main man, Michael Lavorgna: Dale's Pale Ale from the Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colorado, wins the award for best beer of 2008.

Click the external link to hear (and see) JA's current fave demo track.

There is much to admire and to enjoy in this idiosyncratically charming hybrid loudspeaker. Eminent Technology has been around for about 25 years. Founder Bruce Thigpen was a pioneer in air-bearing technology, and ET's first product was a well-regarded air-bearing tonearm. The company later developed and was awarded patents for its Linear Field Transducers (LFTs): <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/308et">push-pull loudspeaker panels</A> that operate on the magnetic rather than the electrostatic principle. Arraying magnets both front and rear of the plastic-membrane diaphragm eliminates a problem inherent in many planar-magnetic designs: as excursion increases, the magnetic restorative force diminishes. As can be expected, this technology is not efficient at reproducing bass, so most such speakers have been hybrids.