HE 2007

Jeff Joseph was demoing his RM7si compact monitors ($2300/pr) with Bel Canto's 150Wpc 3001 integrated amp ($2200) to spectacular effect. Why was that surprising? Because his source was an iBook laptop feeding a usb output into the 300i.

Bob Silverman wowed a select but enthusiastic audience Friday with a concert that consisted of two Mozart sonatas (K303 and K300) and three Brahms piano sketches. He was playing a Steinway parlor grand that sounded wonderfully Mozartian.

The HT845 single-ended monoblock amplifiers ($2500/ea) were so new, Hyperion had no literature on them. They looked and sounded good, though.

Proclaim Audioworks' Dan Herrington had a revelation one day while sitting in the smallest room of his house. "I was reading old JAES papers," he said, "when I read a measured analysis of speaker radiation patterns based on cabinet construction. A sphere was extraordinarily close to the perfect form, but then you had to deal with using multiple drivers."

A tradition at HE SHows is the "bazaar: in one of the hotel's ballrooms, where record companies and accessory manufacturers do a brisk business. Here, Marcia Martin of Reference Recordings shows off their latest release Serenade, a recording of the same vocal group, the Turtle Creek Chorale, as in their best-selling Rutter's Requiem CD.