Jeffrey Catalano of Manhattan retailer High Water Sound missed his vocation—he should have been a DJ, as listening to his choice of music is always a Show highlight for me. As I entered Jeffrey was playing the old Stones song "Wild Horses" but it didn't sound like the version I knew from the band's Sticky Fingers album. Yes it was Mick Jagger singing, but the backing was more like a demo. Jeffrey showed me the LP cover: The Rolling Stones—Stripped. It went on my must-buy list.

At Axpona, Jeffrey was demming a system comprising the Horning Eufrodite Zigma Plus speakers ($24,000/pair) driven by Thoress Systems 845SE tubed monoblocks ($14,000/pair), Preamp ($9000), and Phone Enhancer ($9000). Source was the TW-Acustic turntable ($9500) fitted with twp TW10.5 tonearms ($5500 each) and Miyajima Labs Shilabe ($3000) and Zero ($2000) cartridges. Stands were by Silent Running, AC cords by Tel Wire, interconnects and speaker cables by Zen Sati, and power conditioning by Silver Circle. The system sounded untidy but it did allow the music to speak most effectively.