John Atkinson heads across America's great plains toward Kansas to engineer a brand-new recording that he and Les Berkley document in A Mosaic of Music: Stereophile's Clarinet Quintet CD. For the new CD, JA returns again to Chad Kassem's audio Mecca, noting that "105 takes of the Mozart and 102 takes of the Brahms later, we had gotten everything down on tape in two days of intense music-making."The Theta Citadel monoblock amplifier "is as handsome a monoblock as these jaded eyes have laid eyes on," says Jonathan Scull. But, he adds, "As we all know, it's the sound that counts." Not to be seduced by a pretty faceplate, J-10 determines whether or not the Theta delivers the audio goods.Sam Tellig explains, "By the time I could afford new Mac tube gear, in the mid-'70s, Mac was making only solid-state. I could have bought used, though. Probably should have." With the release of the McIntosh C2200 preamplifier, Tellig gets a modern glimpse of what he missed.
Ask most of Stereophile's readers and they'll tell you that CDs are too expensive. John Atkinson grapples with this widespread assumption in this month's "As We See It," Are CD Prices Too High? As JA explains, beware the "Law of Unintended Consequences" when it comes to cheap music.Finally, the next installment in our "Recording of the Month" series for the online archives: Recording of May 2002, Neil Young's Are You Passionate? Robert Baird asserts that Neil Young has claimed a (for him) rare middle ground: "a smooth, tuneful, lightly funky album unlike almost anything else he's ever recorded."
