As many of you know from my email on the subject, the review I promised of an important new digital recorder is now available.

Excerpt: "After more than twenty years of silly claims and empty promises, of which 'perfect sound forever' was the best known, digital audio has finally come of age, as shown by the performance of this combination of units, the first digital recording system I can recommend. It's far better than the minimum we need for practice and teaching; good enough,in fact, to make commercial releases. And no, I don't think it does so well as good analog recording. But in terms of equipment you can buy brand-new, I don't know anything else at or below the price, analog or digital, that's good enough to master an album; and this combination of units is that good...."

There are two pages to the review. The intro page is at http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/update2.htm . The link from there to the complete review is password-protected. You'll need a copy of To Hear Ourselves As Others Hear Us for the password. The intro page also tells how to buy the book quickly over the phone or on the Web.

I hope the password protection will not offend. It's because a review like this is a *lot* of work, and it's intended only for those who own the book. If you're in the market for a piece of equipment like the one reviewed -- street price about $3100 -- the price of the book is a microscopic fraction of what you'll save by having this information, quite apart from the value of the musical techniques that are the main content of the book.

The protection is also intended to put some distance between my reviews and all the nonsense floating around the web & the usenet.

Please do not share the password.

Happy performing and good practicing,

P.S. I'm working on evaluations of some recording equipment that is far less expensive, but confusing results so far require time for clarification.

-- James Boyk (boyk@caltech.edu), August 11, 1999