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From my first room at High End Munich: Some actual news: A new SACD player from Mark Levinson.

The show wasn't open yet. The booths weren't finished being built. I was walking alone, and there were no audio people anywhere. But as soon as I saw it, I froze and pulled out my camera. It's not hammertone gray. It's not a grease-bearing. But it was here in front of me.

Leute, High End München 2019 ist der große Audio-Zirkus . . .

I first became aware of the existence of Stereophile sometime in spring 1985, while working as a typesetter in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Remember typesetting?) From far down the hall behind me I heard a big, high-pitched laugh. I turned to see my present boss guiding toward my dark typesetting cell my future boss: a very tall, balding, round-faced man with a huge grin who shambled along in loose chinos and a Hawaiian shirt in full sail.

What better way to get into the proper frame of mind for Munich High End than by listening to native German speaker baritone Matthias Goerne’s new recording of Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24—Kerner-Lieder Op. 35, with accompaniment by the distinguished piano soloist Leif Ove Andsnes? It’s available on CD (Harmonia Mundi HMM902353), as a download (up to 96/24), and streaming.

Sometime near the turn of this century, I wandered into a demo room at a Consumer Electronics Show and discovered, in the exhibit of a company I'd never heard of, an integrated amplifier that sounded clean and refreshing. It was the only product Hegel Music Systems displayed at that CES, and I don't recall its name or the associated equipment, but I've always remembered that model's striking appearance and impressive sound quality.

Don Was is a music lover. Looking at his extensive discography as a record producer and musician, one is struck by the variety of artists he's worked with: from Iggy Pop to the B-52's, from Roy Orbison to Elton John, with over half a dozen stops along the way as producer for a little band called the Rolling Stones. In 2017, Was produced Gregg Allman's final studio album, Southern Blood (Rounder 610005). And when you include all the music he's had a hand in since 2012, when he became president of Blue Note Records, you're talking about one busy little red hen helping to bake a lot of bread.