Fred Manteghian

To me, Rotel has always been the Everyman's answer to high-end audio. The company has always followed a "straight wire with gain" philosophy, which has earned it respect throughout the audiophile community. Like NAD, it's believed in holding to conservative power ratings, particularly compared to mass-market American and Japanese offerings. My daughter uses "40-Watt" Rotel integrated amplifier that's a decade old to drive her Magnepan MMG speakers, which are a pretty tough load, and it is more than comfortable with the task.

I think there were nine stories in this store in Tokyo's Electric Town area. One floor had a Tower Records on it. Another floor had musical instruments, toys, and yet another record store. If you can't find it here, you can't find it anywhere.

Here's a BluRay drive you can stick in your computer. At $Yen 99,800, less the 10% the store was offering you if you opened up a charge account (I'd be lost reading my monthly statement!), you can have it for about $750. It burns single and dual layer Blues at a 2X rate that'll have you saying, "Wow – this sure is slow!"

Frequent reader Tom V. from Philadelphia writes: "I'm fixing up my home recording studio and I'm not satisfied with the Yamaha NS-10 monitors I'm currently using. What should I get instead?"