...goes the song from the Middle Ages and no, it isn't really true in the month of Apriling. But the May issue of Stereophile is about to hit newsstands, mailboxes, and tables as we write and it is, we modestly claim, one heck of an issue!
Taking pride of place on the cover is the new No.526 preamplifier from the venerable Mark Levinson brand. Designed by a team led by the well-respected Todd Eichenbaum at Harman's new Engineering Center of Excellence and manufactured in the US, the No.526 offers a full array of inputs—line, phono, and digital—and excels with all of them. The Levinson is joined in our May issue by reviews of Wilson's Alexx speaker, DACs from the UK's Meridian and Italy's CanEver, and Hegel's CD player, while Kal Rubinson and Herb Reichert write about their auditions of the controversial MQA format in both surround and stereo.
But wait there's more: In "The Tight Lines Project," Art Dudley and John Atkinson report on the making of the first recording to be released on the Stereophile label in six years. Featuring works for chamber ensembles by Sasha Matson and recorded in Hollywood's legendary EastWest Studio, Tight Lines will be available from this website's "Shop" page Monday April 17 on CD, 180gm LP, and hi-rez downloads.
