Welcome to GoodSound!
 I began collecting records
in high school. By the time I got to college, I was seriously addicted to vinyl LPs and
their younger siblings, CDs. My addiction was enabled by my living in downtown New York
City, less than a block from a fantastic, cheap record store (Sounds on St. Mark's Place,
now just a shadow of its former self). After I graduated, my addiction subsided; in only a
few years’ time I found myself without a decent stereo, and with most of my music in
storage at my parents' home. What made me give up my love of music during this period
remains a mystery, but I'm sure graduate school and the opposite sex had something to do
with it.
Not long after getting married, I began to realize how much
I missed listening to music seriously. After examining what passed for my
"hi-fi" at the time, I decided that the first step on my way back to musical
nirvana would be a better stereo system. Being a fancy-pants intellectual (I was still in
graduate school), I treated this problem as I treated all problems: begin with research,
evaluate the findings, and reach a conclusion. So, off to the newsstand I went to find
magazines that reviewed audio equipment. I bought a sampling of the usual suspects and
went home to start my new research project.
My research project didn't get off to a great start,
however. The magazines I’d bought had some interesting articles and plenty of
reviews, but each seemed to be one of two types, and neither type was very helpful. On the
one hand were magazines with wonderfully detailed reviews that told me everything I'd want
to know about a product. The only problem was that the products reviewed were way beyond
my budget (did I mention that I was a graduate student?). It was great to know that a
$3000 turntable would play my LPs with tonal accuracy, but how about a $300 turntable? I
don't think even the phono cartridges reviewed in those magazines cost that little. On the
other hand were magazines that did discuss less-expensive equipment, but the articles --
they couldn’t really be called "reviews" -- read more like advertisements
than serious critical appraisals. These magazines seemed to prefer telling me about the
products’ features rather than their sound quality. The budding or budget-minded
audiophile, it seemed, was left without a home or place of his or her own.
We here at GoodSound! are committed to being the
home for just those audiophiles. Whether you’re just starting out, or simply don't
want to spend a mortgage payment for interconnect cables, we want you to know that you're
welcome here. No matter what others might say, you can have a musically satisfying stereo
on a real-world budget, and we're here to help you achieve that goal. We want to give you
serious, detailed reviews of audio components that won't break the bank and will provide
years of musical enjoyment. We want to inform you about how to correctly set up your
system, and provide you with articles not only about the electronics, but also about
recordings we think you'll enjoy.
Beginning next month, we'll be introducing some subtle
changes that we hope will make GoodSound! an even more inviting place for you to
visit. If you’re a regular reader, be sure to stop by and see what’s new. It
would also be a good time to tell your friends, audiophile and novice alike, to stop by
and check us out. As always, we'll be right here, waiting for you, in the sweet spot.
…Eric D. Hetherington
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