Stephen Mejias

<i>From left: JA (with unidentified baby), Jon Iverson, and Erick Lichte, riding an elevator at the Venetian, site of the high-performance audio suites, on Day 1 of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.</i>

I don’t think much about resolutions. One way or another, people do what they <i>want</i> to do, and all too often our desire conflicts with our resolve. But yesterday morning, as I was walking around downtown, waiting for everyone else to wake up, I stopped at Van Vorst Park to eat a banana and watch a father build a snowman for his son.

For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, <i>Nevermind</i>. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/news/102207bernie/index.html">Bernie Grundman</a>, and pressed at <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/408rti/index.html">RTI</a&gt; on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by <a href="http://www.originalrecordingsgroup.com/index.htm">Original Recordings Group</a>. Thank god for them.

The January 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. Hooray! A new volume! A new year! Twelve more issues of <i>Stereophile</i>! Whee! We are pretty excited about starting the year off with a review of a PC soundcard. And at just $200, the ASUS Xonar Essence is the least expensive product to ever grace the cover of our magazine. Plus, it’s got that pretty golden tiger thing on it. What aroused John Atkinson’s interest, however, was the ASUS’s claimed signal/noise ratio of 124dB: “True high-end territory.”

I’ve received two packages in the mail today. Both were from Portland, Oregon, a hotbed for outstanding independent music, and both contained <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/why_cassettes/">tapes</a></i&…;.

<i>Where did I hide that Replacements record, dammit?</i>

Oh yeah: <a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/12/09/this-christmas-just-g… having a holiday sale.