Stephen Mejias

Clearly, my boss, Stereophile’s esteemed editor, John Atkinson, lost another bet.

Here we see him singing, furiously, at the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society’s 18th Annual Society Gala and Awards Banquet, held last weekend in the Grand Ballroom of the Buena Park Holiday Inn. He really hits his stride at about 40 seconds in. (Thanks to "The Audio Otaku" for capturing the magic.)

Sunday, January 15, 5–9pm and Monday, January 16, 6–9pm: As a way to recuperate from the madness of the Consumer Electronics Show and with a hat tip to Devore Fidelity's popular Monkeyhaus listening parties, Pitch Perfect Audio (300 Brannan Street, Suite 209, San Francisco) will host their first “Greenhaus” events.

The big difference between car audio and home audio, explains WIRC Media's Micah Sheveloff, is car audio’s need to overcome ambient noise. In fact, to a large extent, it’s this simple requirement which dictates a system’s overall design. In the case of the Caprice, the system had to have enough power to overcome the car’s custom-built 2.25-inch stainless dual exhaust.

By this point in our conversation, Micah has already apologized for the noise a number of times.

“Let’s listen to the system for a bit and I’ll see if we can find some good roads,” Micah suggests. “Ready?”

Ahmed Gallab is perhaps best known for his work in Caribou, Of Montreal, and, most recently, Yeasayer, all bands which combine electronic elements with more organic sounds to get listeners thinking and moving on the dance floor. But Gallab is also keeping busy with his own project, Sinkane.

In our December issue, I write about the Emotiva ERC-2 CD player, which, at $449, brought me many hours of listening pleasure. Stereophile editor John Atkinson will describe the player’s measured performance in an upcoming issue. In January, I’ll write more about the Emotiva, and, in February, I’ll discuss NAD’s affordable ($300) C 515BEE CD player.

Obviously, I’ve been listening to a lot of CDs lately; and, while I have started to long for my LPs, I haven’t really gone crazy or anything. Listening to CDs can be fun, too&#151especially when the discs hold music by Alva Noto and Ryuchi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, and Matthew Shipp.

Meanwhile, Natalie and Nicole have mentioned a rumor that’s spreading all over the Internet:

On Thursday, November 17, Sound By Singer celebrated the grand opening of their new showroom with an evening of music and product demonstrations.

SoundCloud, the neat “social sound platform” that allows users to create and share sounds with anyone who has an internet connection, turned to design company, The Wilderness, to help answer the question, “What is sound?”

See what the experts&#151Moby, Imogen Heap, Julian Treasure, Martyn Ware, and others&#151have to say.