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Change, it seems, is a byword for audio dealerships that aim to stay afloat, and Hanson Audio Video has seen its share of changes. Events and unconventional outreach are now integral to the company's approach.

Even as I was admiring some of the handsomest audio gear I'd ever set eyes on, my thoughts kept returning to equipment of a very different sort.

Flash back maybe 40 years to my one-bedroom apartment on Elgin Park in San Francisco during the period when I was whistling for my supper and performing Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" in the Emmy-nominated Peanuts cartoon, "She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown." Cue the constant din of an elevated four-lane freeway, since demolished as a blight on humankind, which I tried to pretend was the sound of water in the accompaniment to one of Schubert's many "water and fish" songs.

I have owned the SE version of the Bricasti M1 D/A converter for several years. It's my reference DAC. When, recently, I became aware of the availability of the factory-installed MDx Processor Board upgrade, I packed up the M1SE and sent it off to the Bricasti factory, which is in Shirley, Massachusetts, northwest of Boston. The factory-installed MDx upgrade costs $1000—a lot less than the $10,000 it costs today to buy a new M1SE with the MDx board.

If you've ever paused in front of a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, you may have noticed that the canvas seems to glow. Everything in Rubens's paintings celebrates abundance. A golden light bathes his landscapes, and his figures are epitomes of radiant health—the women ample and voluptuous (a body type sometimes called "Rubenesque"), the men vigorous and athletic. Invariably, these expanses of rosy European flesh appear to be in motion, an effect Rubens mastered more thoroughly than arguably any artist of his age.

Chairman at the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation, by Bill Schnee. Backbeat Books, 2021. 219pp. $24.49, hard cover; $21.49, Kindle e-book.

It was September 2012, and Sasha Matson and I were in Los Angeles to record the singers for his jazz opera, Cooperstown. We had already recorded the instrumental backing with engineer Mike Marciano at Brooklyn's Systems Two studio, and the venue for the vocal tracking sessions was Bill Schnee's studio in North Hollywood.

"We are so proud of everyone who made T.H.E. Show 2021 come to life," texted show coordinator Emiko Carlin about what was the first post-pandemic audio show to take place in North America. "After more than a year of unprecedented losses, this was no doubt a true celebration of audio and musical connection. We are thrilled that 1416 unique attendees showed up to reconnect, and we are delighted that [they] all did it safely and responsibly. As the first audio show in the US to open, and one that had to honor venue attendance caps, we are over the moon with how of T.H.E. Show 2021 turned out. We can't wait for our next event!"

Folks were already packing up in the Wyred4Sound room when I happened upon an active display of their just-completed prototypes, none of which is listed on their website. If you total up the total cost of the Aura preamp ($2999, Aura GaN amplifier ($2999), MS i3 music server ($2999) with its outboard HCPS power supply ($999). Isolink USB reclocker ($399), 10th Anniversary DAC ($4499), and Reference Standard 1 speaker ($14,999/pair), plus cables and all the rest, you end up with a $31,213 system.