Ariel Bitran

Three weeks ago, I published my top five guitar solos, a subjective list based entirely on the guitarists’ ability to move my soul through their combination of note selection and technical wizardry. These self-imposed standards led to many obvious guitarists being left off the list in favor of some less-spoken for guitar heroes with a penchant for inspiration and resourcefulness. Now I’m putting the power in your hands. Using my original list plus your suggestions in the comments section, I created a collaborative Spotify playlist titled “Stereophile - Greatest Guitar Solos Ever”. You are all invited to add songs to this list and share what you feel are the most important leads of all time. It’s a guitar solo potluck where you can hear what other playlist subscribers have to offer as well as showcase your own tastes. Open the playlist in Spotify via this link or in your web browser here. Drag songs from different artists and albums to the playlist on the left-panel of the Spotify interface to add your choices to the list. Have fun!

Please. One more hit. Just one. That’s all I need. Another song, another act. It won’t hurt. It can’t hurt. I promise this will be the last place we go. Four hours later, we wake up on a subway train in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Live music can be a dangerous thing. The thrills of a live show, the blending lightshow, the stomach-shaking bass, the spit and the sweat, are irreplaceable, but the life of the live music junkie can drain one’s energy and bank account. Fortunately, thanks to the folks at Concert Vault, you can get your live music fix on daily basis for just $2.99 a month.

Saturday, November 10, 11am–3pm: Audio High (165 Moffett Boulevard, Mountain View, CA) hosts another vinyl sale to benefit the Friends of Palo Alto Library. Last year’s sale generated more than $1700 to benefit the Palo Alto Library, a cultural pillar to Santa Clara County community.

Some LPs that will be hallmarked for this sale include a Zappa collection, an assortment of French pop and avant-garde LPs, and as the “usual selection of hard-to-find rock and jazz titles.” Musical Surroundings and Clearaudio representatives will be at the benefit to answer turntable related questions and showcase their products.

After filling my speaker stands with kitty litter, the bass warble tones on Stereophile’s Editor’s Choice CD were less boomy from start to finish with greater depth within each warble tone and lower frequencies not heard previously were now audible thanks to a quieter noise floor, but after weeks of warble tones, I needed some real music.

First on the platter was Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding which features 3-piece band orchestrations, punchy yet meandering bass lines, and anguished harmonica playing from Mr. Zimmerman. While listening, the bass player’s melodic fills on “All Along the Watchtower” muddied the mix and masked Dylan’s vocals. One week later, my problems of unruly bass had returned.

So where were we? Ah yes, I had just nailed loudspeaker positioning in my tiny bedroom by switching the left and right speakers placing the tweeters on the outside of my array. This change widened the soundstage and stabilized the central image but sacrificed some pinpoint high-end articulation I had with the tweeters inside the widths of the speakers. Yet, excessive bass resonances remained as evidenced through Paul McCartney’s bass runs on “Something” from my Abbey Road LP. Though a touch vaudeville, Paul is still a reserved and classy English gent, and there’s no way his bass guitar would demand such a boisterous presence. I had to get him under control.

In this video, Stereophile columnist and Analog Planet Editor Michael Fremer and Gary Dell'Abate (aka Baba Booey), producer of the Howard Stern Show, compare the virtues of analog playback to MP3, discuss the release of Nirvana's Nevermind on the spinning black circle, and Mikey coins the phrase 'the viral spread of vinyl.'

Somewhere in Budapest, something very scary is happening. Somewhere in Budapest, something very beautiful is blooming. Stereophile forum user vencel has reposted images of his rebuild of a Koetsu Rosewood cartridge starting at its grim and crud-crusted beginnings leading to its careful reconstruction and finishing with a gorgeously refurbished cartridge glowing in the light. The gruesome details of death and deconstruction are told through haunting images, and then hope is reborn through the hard work of vencel and his team’s delicate re-coiling and cleanup. The story can be seen here in our forums. I’m sure vencel would be happy to answer any questions. Congrats to you and your team!