Ariel Bitran

Friday, May 11, at 5pm: Sight + Sound (Studioplex, G8, 659 Auburn Avenue, Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta, GA) hosts its grand opening as both a contemporary art gallery and high-end audio equipment retailer. The gallery will showcase artwork from local artists while exhibiting gear from T+A, Nordost, and Elipson.

Wabaam! Another month, another Stereophile. My how time flies when you are reviewing hi-fi.

Compared to the enormous April issue that hosts our chunky Recommended Components listing, May is petite but still packs a powerful punch loaded with insights and audio enhancers. Enhancers you ask? What might those be? Well how about bell bronze gongs! And magic fuses! And audio to make you cream…I mean, P.W.B.’s Electret Cream, which according to AD, just might work if you rub it in the right place.

Stereophile is not all about reviewing hi-fi, and thanks to our all-knowing and thrill-seeking Music Editor, Robert Baird, we cover exciting new releases in each monthly issue for you to consider on your hi-fi escapades. In this post, I listen to all records we reviewed available on streaming services MOG and Spotify from our April 2012 issue, provide my own two-cents, and link to the playlists from the two services. With a premium account, one can stream at 320kbps Ogg Vorbis files from Spotify, and MOG users can stream 320kbps MP3s for free!

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Links:


The MOG April 2012 Playlist: A Pensive Month

The Spotify April 2012 Playlist: Pure Fun

It has been a strange winter. Now approaching what is formally known as spring, I’m not sure if we ever even made it out of autumn! Forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of February in New York City? What in the hell is going on?

Similar to how the seasons from 2011 to 2012 have melded together into the longest autumn, the shipping out of each issue of Stereophile becomes a blur as well. As I discussed in my last on newsstands March article, we are never really sure what month we are living in here at the Stereophile office, much less the month of the issue we are working on, except for when we are compiling April Issue. We always know when we’re working on the April.

Why’s that?

Over @Stereophile, we received a tweet from follower Henry Gessau:

Henry Gessau. Henry Gessau! Who is this mysterious chap? He must be some time-travelling, sound-saving avenger! Color photography was not widely available until the 1950s, so based on his profile picture, Henry must have lived sometime between the years 1850 and 1950 and then tweeted into the future! But forget the man. What about his message?

As we sent the March issue for delivery to the printing presses, the April issue sat in queue for multiple rounds of edits. At the same time, the editors, writers, and a lowly editorial assistant lay the building blocks for the May issue to be released two months away. With the constant influx of communication regarding dates present, future, and future’s future, it is hard to know what month we are ever really living in, and it is a time-bending wonder whenever the new issue of Stereophile shows up on our desks. So with great excitement, we announce to you Stereophile March 2012, Volume 35, Number 3.

Here at the Stereophile office, we listen to lots of different tunes ranging from Bach to Fucked Up to Sylvester, but in the Bitran/Mejias cubicle, there has been a recent resurgence in our passion for POPULAR music.