May 2018

Great Times In High-End Audio
Plus we want to do more for you!
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin

  Just before watching qualifications for Formula 1's Azerbaijan race at Baku City Circuit (great race btw), I was looking at what reviews are within this month's magazine plus April's as well. Yours Truly is quite deep into 'show mode' as AXPONA 2018 was a massive success by every measurement; with HIGH END's 2018 show in Munich in about 10 days away followed by LAAS 2018 a few weeks later. Enjoy the Music.com had been busy working alongside manufacturers as we're publishing their excellent educational, and informative, articles. Of course this issue of Enjoy the Music.com's Review Magazine, plus June's issue, will also be released over this same time period as two more show reports. Seems to me that all of us within high-end audio are working around the clock nowadays!

Must admit to being a young-ish guy here, being 'active' within high-end audio for only about 30 years. Of those, 25 are on a 'professional' level unless we also for some strange reason count my years at Heathkit electronics where dual trace oscilloscope (new triple trace a year later) and brand new massive-storage 20MB Winchester hard drive were all the rage while working their BBS system as SysOp. We built things back then. (Sigh) We also fixed them too. People aspired to own hi-fi rack systems, big speakers, and turntables. Of course some of us still do (very big grin), yet there's no doubt things have changed dramatically thanks to new technologies plus the ebb-and-flow of 'modern' lifestyles.

When I'm speaking of modern, it is not just the latest music streamer or DAC. Look at the custom made drivers by YG Acoustics or the 3D printed tonearm by VPI. On the opposite side of technology, if your home's décor seeks a luxurious Italian hand-carved speaker cabinet then Sonus Faber is an excellent choice. From traditional vacuum tube amplification by VAC to Class D and beyond, in all my years of reporting on high-end audio have never seen such a glorious variety of products from both longtime manufacturers to surprising 'upstarts'.

As an example or two, MrSpeakers and Abyss, whose planar headphones are now a big hit and receiving rave reviews, were both just upstarts of sorts not too many years ago. We're seeing longtime industry companies such as McIntosh Labs bring back their free diagnostic clinic, which has not been done for nearly three decades! If you love reissues, brands such as JBL and Dynaco have some sweet re-births of their legendary offerings.

Overall, the many smiling faces at shows says it all, as everyone is enjoying the music.

What Can We Do For You?
And so this brings me to asking you, both the industry and readers alike, what more can Enjoy the Music.com do for you? Think you've got the major chops to write reviews for us? E-mail us. Think your company has a hot new product that does something truly innovative? E-mail us. Want to know the meaning of life? Watch a Monty Python movie… or something like that. We want to do more for you!

And on that note, these are exciting times at Enjoy the Music.com as we're working more closely with our partner magazines to bring you additional articles and reviews!

We're also going to be discussing with manufacturers about bringing back our annual contest. Keep in mind that we've offered both the second largest, and largest, magazine contests within the industry to date ($80,000 and $90,000 in prizes offered respectively). Never heard of our $90,000 contest during 2012? Well, that's because it was so very long ago. Don't you think it's about time Enjoy the Music.com held another truly epic contest? Yeah, me too.

We very much appreciate you reading Enjoy the Music.com, joining our social media pages, and of course recommending us to your music loving friends. We look forward to seeing you at HIGH END in Munich and LAAS in Southern California. As always, in the end what really matters is that you...

Enjoy the Music,

Steven R. Rochlin

And, sadly, wife / muse Heather won't be with me during HIGH END 2018 in Munich. And so we'll fall in love.... again. Re-discovering her...