The Power Cords page is still in woeful need of having a half-dozen power cords added to is list – there are a lot of new very-high-end power cords out there.

The CD Player, Amplifier and Preamplifier pages all now use the same purpose-directed approach as the speaker page does.

The CD Player page might be a little controversial – there are a lot of players that just seem to be competent, but are not otherwise special. ‘Workhorses’ as we call them. Maybe we should rename the ‘Workhorse’ category to something else – but as of now we cannot think of a better name.

This table also clarifies our perspective on the Esoteric et. al. versus the Meitner discussions. Yes, the top end Esoteric may have more detail and tighter bass – but we think the Meitner is QUALitatively better than the Esoteric.

In general, the equipment with the best quantitative performance and/or measurements does not always provide the most magical listening experiences, in our experience. One would think that the memory of the decades of the quantitatively better solid-state versus tube amplifiers debacle or even the quantitatively better CDs versus LPs travesty would be fresh in people minds… but guess not.

… to the Galaxy.

I think the new page more accurately reflects the general types of sounds people are searching for when they choose and/or like a speaker’s sound.

Our personal penchant has been moving from emotional to real to, now, magical and during this move the number of recommended speakers kept dwindling in numbers. The new table no longer recommends speakers, per se, but hopefully helps a person decide what kind of sound they are interested in and then provides some of the best (oops, there is that word again) examples of the state-of-the-art speakers that produce that type of sound.

Most people who are not hardcore (aka crazy, nuts, obsessive, … need we say more?) want an impressive speaker – and as one can see from the table, most popular speakers are impressive… and unfortunately they have little else going for them.

The speakers that can do multiple things, like communicating emotion and produce a convincingly real presentation, as well as being impressive at the right times, would seem to me to be speakers that both women and men might like as well as providing enough depth and sophisitication to allow their owner’s love of music to grow deeper and wider over the years.

The Audio Federation website is always trying to maintain a balance so that it serves equally well all the different kinds of visitors we get: customers and audiophiles, the hobbiest and the merely curious, those looking for information and those looking for audio por*n/photos.

Finally happy with the look of the home page, and we’ll probably keep it until at least June, if not longer.

We added a Site Map page accessible from the home page to make it easier to get around – which I even find myself using more and more. The links at the top of each page in the dealership now let one easily get back to the home (top) page.

The Music page will evolve to become an annotated index into the Blog’s forthcoming posts of audiophile-relevent music reviews. Our emphasis will be somewhat different than other music reviews, focusing on the quality of the sound more than the history of the band or how the album fits within the bands other work, or fits within the genre as a whole. Not that this other information isn’t interesting – it is that it is already done quite well by others in the industry, and no reason for us to duplicate or detract from their good work

The Hifi’ing Magazine will evolve into being not only a list of recent show reports but an annotated index into the Blog so that people can more easily find ‘major Blog posts in history’.

The Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy will be updated, both visually and content-wise. Finally.

We’ve added a number of photo galleries to the dealership product pages, and these will get fleshed out a lot more with both pictures that we take here and those we have taken, and will take, at shows.

We’ve also started adding ‘experience reports’ to the dealership’s product pages, which collect and display information about our experiences with the various products in several situations. The HRS vibration control product line is the first of many products we will do this for.

Neli will start working a lot more on the website; she knows a lot more details about most of the products than I do.

This means letting Neli have access to the website. I can just see it now. If you notice some descriptions going back and forth between say “lovely and detailed” on the one hand and “rich and detailed” on the other – you will know it is one of THOSE types of discussions going on here on the other side of your computer.

This is kind of like lending your spouse the keys to your Lamborghini (well, let’s just imagine we all had a Lamborghini, OK, and thatmost of us hadn’t spent all our money on audio equipment and $30 a pop LPs). How many times can you say ‘pleeeeease don’t break it dear’ before you get one of those matrimonial Death Ray looks? Once? Yeah, that is the way it works here, too.

I do try to get her to post her ideas on this blog…at least once a day, (and sometimes hourly. This nets me another kind of look). She made her own trip to Planet Abraxus, and to planet [whatever opera Mike Lavigne was playing the last hour of CES in the Swedish Statement room] and I am sure people would like to hear what she has to say about it.

But she is more comfortable talking about audio than writing about it, the opposite of her way too softly spoken husband. So it will still mostly be me who is posting stuff on the Blog about the ‘goings on’ here at the Belfry – with hopefully some occasional posts by Neli, and perhaps even some special guests, from time to time.

If you have any other ideas, please let us know. Thanks!