Venice Never Had It So Good

As fate would have it, on my third attempt to enter the Venice Audio Suite—intense conversation made the other passes futile—Mark Waldrep of AIX Records/iTrax had brought in some of his hi-res files for store proprietor Peter Selesnick to hear. The room was quiet, and for good reason: the sound was too beautiful to talk over.

Mark was playing Robert Prosseda's 96/24 DVD-A of Chopin's Ballade in G minor and The Old City String Quartet's 96/24 Blu-ray of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. The music was heavenly, and the lovely sound of the system supplied perfect end-of-day solace.

Doing the honors were Kudos Audio C20 loudspeakers ($6590/pair), Naim Audio NDX network player/streamer ($5145) with HiCap power supply ($2145) and Naim Audio SuperNait integrated amplifier ($4995), Tellurium Q Black loudspeaker cable ($498/3m pair), Audience PDC power distribution center ($1500), and Quadraspire Q4 Evo equipment stand ($175 per level).

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