Ramblings.

Welcome to Issue 94, which contains among other things our annual compilation of equipment recommendations from our contributors. You will find plenty of recommended components at a variety of price points and a lot of practical advice, and you will get a little more insight into our contributors. As Bill Cosby used to warn his viewers at the start of each episode of Fat Albert, "be careful or you just might learn something."

A Little Free Advice: I recently received a letter from a long-time reader asking for some advice about his system. It seems that had he had a really nice system featuring a pair of rather expensive but highly recommended loudspeakers, and his questions was whether it would be worthwhile to spend a rather considerable sum of money to upgrade his speakers to the latest factory specifications. He said he was not really concerned about the money; however, that he was looking for advice, or at least for validation, indicates that he could not entirely disregard the financial effect of his decision.

Although what this gentleman was no doubt hoping to get from me was a straightforward yes or no answer, that is not of course what I provided. This is a really complex issue, one that transcends the simple question of whether the new speaker would be better than what he already had. The simple answer to that question is an easy one--the new speaker does perform better. But the real question is a value question--whether it is worth it for this gentleman to spend the considerable amount of money that he would need to spend. This is a question for which I am not prepared to offer a simple answer. My inclination is to say no--surely there are better things he could do with this money than to bring about a slight performance in his audio system. He could use it to help pay down his mortgage. He could take a vacation. He could upgrade some home appliances, buy some new tires for his car, set some money aside for a rainy day, or donate to a church or charity. If he absolutely insisted upon spending money on his audio system, he could buy a subwoofer or some surround speakers, or he could even purchase some new CDs or invest in an SACD player and some SACDs.

I do hope that if this gentleman reads these paragraphs, he will not feel as though I am making light of his question or trying to give ...