November 2009

In This Issue....
Industry Notes And Streaming Thoughts
Article By Steven R. Rochlin
Click here to e-mail reviewer

  Summer is now officially over and once again we Northern hemisphere music lovers begin to hunker down and settle in for out winter's enjoyment of our audiophile systems. With the RMAF 2009 (Rocky Mountain Audio Fest) now in the rearview mirror, there are other shows to prepare for. i would like to thank all those who attended my RMAF seminar that covered Audio 101 and Tweaks, as there were so many great questions from the audience that it also took quite a few e-mail exchanges to answer them all! Within the past year Enjoy the Music.com has hired over ten new journalists and the fruits of their labor are really showing as we have many new equipment reviews plus a new edition of our DIY Magazine for your reading pleasures.

This month we have many equipment reviews including the World Premiere of the JohnBlue TL66 monoblock tube amplifiers, a World Premiere of Monarchy Audio's SE-100 Delux MK2 monoblock amplifiers, yet another World Premiere with the innovative Tekton Design S12 subwoofer and still another World Premiere of Opera-Consonance and their excellent value for the dollar LP6.1 turntable and TP988 tonearm combination. If that was not enough to quench your thirst, then we add a North American Premiere of Manley Labs' amazing Stingray iTube integrated amplifier, a review of the Lawton Audio LA7000 gorgeous headphones and the highly-loved Sennheiser HD 650 headphones. So get busy and enjoy our many equipment and music reviews within this month's edition of the Review Magazine. Speaking of music reviews....

Classical Editor's Note
I am delighted to welcome Evan Shinners to the music review staff at Enjoy the Music.com. Evan is a second-year Master's student in piano at the Juilliard School, and as you'll see from his bio (click here), he is a multitalented musician, writer and arts entrepreneur.

While I honor and value Evan's special expertise in matters of piano performance, I must say that I disagree with his evaluation of Angela Hewitt's new Well Tempered Clavier. Given the thrust of Evan's review, I suspect that Hewitt's less pedagogically correct, slightly romanticized approach to the music is precisely what makes her readings so attractive to a non-performing lay listener like myself. I could not agree more that the recordings by Wanda Landowska and Glenn Gould mark major milestones in the evolution of Bach interpretation. But Hewitt's relaxed, songful playing brings me greater pleasure, and makes Bach sound less "academic," than any piano version of this musical landmark I have previously encountered. Five Blue Notes from me for all categories.

Welcome aboard, Evan! This is gonna be fun!

Wayne Donnelly

  Of course in the end what really matters is that you...

Enjoy the Music (Camille Saint-Saens' "Le carnaval des animaux"),

Steven R. Rochlin