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November/December 2001
Ramblings
by Karl W. Nehring
Welcome to Issue #88, our annual Staff Picks
issue. We bring you the equipment
recommendations of our contributors, who pass
along advice on everything from individual
components to complete systems. By letting each
contributor publish his own list, rather than
produce one homogenized list, we have
presented these recommendations in a way that
allows readers to see what the individual tastes
and subjective preferences of each reviewer are.
To my way of thinking, this is more helpful to
readers than. it would be for me to come up with
my own master list. I might not agree with every
recommendation made, but the final choice of
what to accept and what to reject should be left
up to you, the reader, rather then me, the editor.
There is some really helpful advice to be found
in these recommendations, and I hope you enjoy
reading through what our staff has to pass along.In addition to the Staff Picks, we also bring
you some reviews of both equipment and
recordings. The one thing we have not included
this time, sadly enough, is our Forum section.
Perhaps the tragic events of September 11 have
us all feeling a bit down, and venting our feelings
about audio equipment has slipped way down
our list of priorities. I do hope, however, that
the consoling power of great music has been felt
by many of our readers over the past couple of
months.First, the Bad News: The music recording
industry, most notably the classical music
recording industry, seems to be imploding, with
every part of the system — musicians, orchestras,
recording companies, distributors, retailers, and
customers—feeling the effects. Some folks
believe that the Internet will replace traditional
distribution systems, but from my perspective
at least, the problems in the distribution system
are only symptoms, not the disease. SACD and
DVD-A seem to be doing little or nothing to
advance the cause of recorded music, and may
in fact be contributing to the overall decline of
the industry rather than offering hope for its
recovery.Now, the Good News: Despite the ongoing
implosion, some really excellent recordings have
been released lately. Our next issue will be our
annual Staff Picks issue for recordings, wherein
we will discuss some of the great performances
recently made available. Perhaps there is hope
yet.How to Communicate with Us: To order a
new subscription, change an address on an
existing subscription, order back issues, or take
care of other subscription-related matters, our
business telephone is (800) 695-8439, our
business fax is (716) 833-0929, our business
address is 403 Darwin Drive, Snyder, NY 14226,
our business e-mail address is
SensiSound@aol.com, and our website is
www.sensiblesound.com. To correspond about
any editorial matters, submit equipment for
review, pass along hot audio gossip, put us on
your mailing list, or just blow off steam, please
write KWN directly at 9775 Mills Road,
Ostrander, OH 43061. To submit a classified ad
or inquire about display advertising, please give
Don Nowak a call at (800) 695-8439 or send him
e-mail at TSSAdv@aol.com.Previews of Coming Attractions: Among the
equipment we have in or have been promised
for review are speakers/ subwoofers from
Atlantic Technology, Dunlavy, Infinity, Legacy
Audio, Martin-Logan, Neosonik, PSB, and Von
Schweikert; components from Onkyo, Linn, and
Perpetual Technologies; and much more,
including plenty of music reviews, six of this,
and a half-dozen of that.
-KWN
One Last Thought: "I think music in itself is
healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity.
It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what
culture we’re from, everyone loves music." — Billy
Joel
