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This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

I’ve heard so many conflicting opinions on the Ultrasone Edition 10 that I just had to get my hands on a pair. At $2,749, you’d reckon the praise ought to be a little more consistent. So I gave my buddy Todd (the Vinyl Junkie) a call to see if he had a pair I could play with, and sure enough, he had a slightly used pair for me to audition.

Wow! What an experience!

The world’s sexiest record-cleaning machine? Possibly. This Hannl Mera ELB (€2670), housed in orange acrylic to look like hot lava, offers programmable cleaning and suction functions for quiet operation and quick drying.

Don’t like orange lava? (What’s wrong with you?) Potential owners can customize their Mera ELBs. Pick your favorite colors and clean away.

The Acoustic Solid Bambus turntable (€6500) caught our attention with its combination of acrylic platter and plinth and bamboo supports. Wild-fi.

Look at this sexy beast. (I’m talking about the turntable.) Dr. Feickert Analogue’s Blackbird (€5490) got my attention with its clean lines and beautiful wood trim. The Blackbird shares the simple design of Feickert’s smaller Woodpecker, but adds the option of a second tonearm, while its refined controller software drives both motors in a slave-master configuration.

"Take a picture of me stroking this gorgeous thing," I said to Rosemarie.

"Yes, boss," she sighed.

Jim Richards poses beside his MD 806 WiFi tuner ($2500; sitting on the shelf below the sweet turntable).

In development for over two years, the MD 806 provides access to FM, DAB, and DAB+, as well as Internet radio stations via its onboard WiFi antenna or LAN, and locally connected music collections (MP3, AAC, FLAC, WMA, Real). Its 3.5” touchscreen displays metadata, genre, bit rate, codec, and sampling rate for the playing track, while personal audio collections (accessed through a local network or USB connection) are navigable by artist name, album name, or musical genre.

Optical and RCA digital outputs are also included for use with an external DAC.

Which one of these things is not like the other? The Harbeth Monitor 20.1 (far left), in new titanium gray finish, makes a statement.

The company wanted to design something a bit sexier, a bit more modern, explained Harbeth’s Alan Shaw.

While he admitted that reasons for selecting one loudspeaker over another are not always rational, he believes a loudspeaker should be used in the application best suited to it. The Monitor 20s are optimized for nearfield monitoring in desktop sound- and video-editing.

Still: “‘Sexy’ is really important,” said Shaw.

On Thursday evening, Rosemarie and I attended the High End Show Gala, held in a large hall on the ground floor of the M.O.C. Marking the entrance were impressive, illuminated sculptures, creating an otherworldly scene.