What Are the Rules?

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(Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, Massachusetts. Photo by Robert Benson Photography)

The Tannhäuser Gate is my personal blog. This is not a group effort, and I am not going to make any pretense of objectivity. Subjectivity reigns. I am not going to make any effort to cover the entire waterfront, either of audio equipment or recordings. I don’t see the point in telling you that the umpteenth new Debussy La Mer recording didn’t really grab me. As Emerson wrote:

Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Posting comments is a privilege, not a right. I will moderate all comments.That means that I might reject a pending comment. I will clean up obvious finger-slip errors such as spacing, punctuation, and mis-spellings, but I will not tinker with the sense of a sentence. Comments that are positive civilized contributions to an ongoing discussion about culture among adults will have a greater chance of being approved.

If you submit a comment and it does not appear, either I have not had a chance to look at it, or, I rejected it for being inappropriate or negative.

I will mention favorably from time to time my own recordings, and also products from my new enterprise, Esperanto Audio. If that displeases you, you can tune out. I am not going to waste my readers’ time by letting people who don’t know what they are talking about take over the discussion.

A few brave audio companies have paid sponsorship fees, which I appreciate. Whether I decide to write about a piece of audio gear or any other product has nothing to do with sponsorship or the lack thereof.

As a usual practice (the exception being a hot-bargain special sale), I will not specify or recommend buying sources for media products such as CDs, SACDs, and DVDs. That is because the best price is a moving target. E.g., sometimes Arkivmusic.com has the best price; sometimes Amazon beats that price. Oftentimes, buying used from eBay sellers or third-party sellers on Amazon is the best strategy.

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