1.  New software, called Direct Note Access, ( www.celemony.com ) will allow changing any one of six notes in a guitar chord without changing the sound of the other notes. Developed by Peter Neubacker, it drew a round of applause when it was demonstrated for professionals at a trade show in Frankfurt this spring. It was designed for multitrack recording where the bass guitar is on one track and the vocalist on another. [The great French pianist Alfred Cortot was famous for his wrong notes--shall we now exhume his recordings to make them perfect?--DBH] NYT 22Jn08

2.  Recently I was looking for a high quality D to A converter and purchased a used Tracer Technologies ( www.tracertek.com ) Big DAADI (D to A A to D Interface Box) manufactured in 1999. It looks fully professional and features 20 bit oversampling delta sigma converters. I checked the A to D by connecting the SPDIF output to my DAT machine's SPDIF input. I noticed a very curious thing. There were tones just above the noise floor with no input. And when I turned the volume up and down on the Tracer, they changed in frequency! The higher the volume setting , the lower the frequency. On a spectrum analyzer they were 10 dB above the noise using a 30 Hz bandwidth. When the tone was above 4 kHz I couldn't hear it no matter how high the volume on headphones. Since I know my hearing is not that bad it must be the case that the noise is masking the signal. Because I was only interested in the D to A, I didn't consider that problem important. The D to A was fine with Brad Meyer's bell test on the BAS CD so I was satisfied.

3.  Members of audiophile societies (that's us) are offered free tickets to T.H.E. Show in Las Vegas, ( www.theshowlasvegas.com ) January 9-11, which parallels the CES Show. Contact T.H.E. Show at info@theshowlasvegas.com or 702-242-4545.  T.H.E. Show promises something rarely experienced on this planet: the cross-pollination of audiophile societies. "We already have plans to bring members of different audiophile societies together," T.H.E. director Richard Beers told Stereophile. "We're considering inviting audiophile society members to our annual exhibitor reception on Thursday evening. That might include keeping exhibits open longer, just for audiophile-society members. After our daily free lunch for exhibitors, industry, and press, we may offer a separate, low-cost lunch for audiophile society members, complete with a speaker. We may also use the Parthenon room for an audiophile society reception at which audiophile society members from Greece, Japan, the US, and other countries can network. We're working it out as we speak." Beers also promises a first-time demo sale on January 11, run by Audiogon. Audiogon will publish a list of equipment for sale.

4.  For BAS members out of town we have a special offer for Jazz lovers. A package of 30 Jazz CDs, randomly picked from Ira Leonard's collection, for $22 including shipping in the USA. To order, send a check, made out to "Boston Audio Society", to David Hadaway, POB 460, Rindge NH 03461. These were donated to the Society by Ira's brother, Joe Leonard.

President, Boston Audio Society

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