LATEST ADDITIONS

On a perfect, late autumn morning, Uncle Omar and I made the short drive from Downtown Jersey City to meet with the Lalin family for a little tour and a lot of hi-fi.

The same weekend John Atkinson was serenading the Los Angeles/Orange County Audio Society, John Marks was showing the flag in Southern New England at the annual Holiday Meeting of the Connecticut Audio Society. JM brought with him to Connecticut not only Sooloos' Control:15 music server, into which he had loaded the playlist for his presentation, but also a Bricasti M1 DAC and Nordost Silver Shadow S/PDIF cable and Bricasti's Brian Zolner to answer questions about his M1 DAC. (JA's full review of the Bricasti will appear in the February 2012 issue of Stereophile, with a Follow-Up by JM in the March issue.)

Seems like every other day a new celebrity headphone comes out. And they're not cheap! Three hundred dollars used to buy you near-world class headphones. How come there's so much bling in headphones these days? How come they're so expensive? How the heck did we get here?

And more importantly, do these headphones sound any good?

Roy has also long been associated with Epos Limited, since a chap named Robin Marshall started the company in 1983. Their first product was the ES-14 loudspeaker, followed by the smaller ES-11. Both were largish, stand-mounted models, and both offered a lively, expressive, unstuffy sound. The speakers have always been fun to listen to, even if they lacked—and still lack—the refinement of some far more expensive speakers.

In the January 2012 issue of Stereophile, I list my 15 favorite records of the year (p.52). Here is an expanded, slightly more detailed list.