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"Our goal is not just to create a portable digital copy of an analog LP; it is to honor the high-fidelity aspects of vinyl by making a digital copy that sounds indistinguishable from the original." So spoke Rob Robinson, PhD (above), creator of Channel D's Pure Vinyl and Pure Music Mac apps, at the start of a recent presentation members of the Bay Area Audiophile Society.

New York's CE Week occurs every June and is a miniature version of the January CES held in Las Vegas. The proportional representation of serious audio gear is similar but, given the small number of total exhibits, audio pickings are usually very thin. This year, however, there was more audio buzz than ever before.

Extreme, perhaps, in size—6'10" when fully extended—and certainly in price ($260,000/pair US price), the Estelon Extreme loudspeaker has arrived at its exclusive US dealer, Audio High in Mountain View and Los Angeles, CA. The brainchild of Estonian designer Alfred Vassilkov, 56, who describes it as the culmination of 30 years of research, each loudspeaker, pictured above with Audio High's Michael Silver, weighs 551.16 lbs (250kg).

Magico's Alon Wolf will be appearing in person at The Audio Salon, Saturday June 14, from 3pm until 8pm. Alon's presentation will feature Magico's newest S-Series speaker, the S3 (above), which costs $22,600/pair, and a discussion about the technology behind the 10th Anniversary M Project.

Wilson Audio Specialties' Sasha Series 2 loudspeaker ($29,500/pair), which began shipping in March, celebrated its formal California debut on Saturday, May 24, at Music Lovers Audio in San Francisco. Handsomely accompanied by recording engineer Peter McGrath (above), Wilson's Director of Sales for North America, and Rich Maez of Boulder Amplifiers, whose electronics joined a dCS front end and cabling from Shunyata, Transparent, and Synergistic Research, the Sasha Series 2, aka Sasha 2, more than lived up to its promise in a less-than-ideal room whose set-up included Synergistic Research’s HFTs and FEQ and Grand Prix Audio’s Monaco equipment racks.

Poor Jimmy Page. After listening to eight tracks from the newly remastered Led Zeppelin studio albums from Atlantic/Swan Song/Rhino, the first three of which, I, II, III, will be released on June 3, the guitar great graciously opened himself to questions. Were the alternate takes, that are the meat of the “companion audio” disc that accompanies each original album, pieced together from a number of alternate takes?

It was the summer of 2000. We had closed Stereophile's office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the City Different in the Land of Enchantment, where the magazine had been headquartered since 1978, and moved lock, stock, and audio systems to New York City. Once I got to New York, I needed an editorial assistant. Stephen Mejias became that assistant in August 2000, at the age of 21.