LATEST ADDITIONS

At the risk of giving these social media upstarts more attention, my old friend Jason Messina (aka The Audiophile Junky) could be found in the Popori/UniQue room, which is a funny thing. The only time I’ve seen Jason even close to being immobile—i.e., not making videos, which he does, hitting the ground running (I’ve seen it)—is at a show!

Music's lunatic fringe drifts further out every hour. As it should. In this century, with computers playing an ever-larger role, music continues to fragment and become infinitely more varied. This splintering is either the essence of what keeps it relevant as an art form or something profoundly disturbing, to be hated and feared.

In the mid-1980s, few bands were as loved, despised, and misunderstood as the Butthole Surfers. The impulse to tread in unexplored borderlands of noise, studio blathery, live excess, indulgent nonsensicalness, and the urge to reconnoiter unheard sonics were all taken to heart by a nutty duo of Texans whose dulcet appellation was originally one of their song titles.

YG Acoustics speakers have always had a distinct look, but the massive aluminum towers in room 806 were unmissable, even if you only glanced into the room. These were the Colorado-based manufacturer’s state-of-the-art Sonja 3.3 loudspeakers.

This all-Infigo-meets-Alta room was bathed in Infigo Audio’s Hans Looman’s usual blue light glow, showering the room with the same mystical vibrations I heard from this room at some CAF long since past.

I remember the first PS Audio product: a simple phono stage. It was so simple—a passive RIAA EQ filter flanked by a pair of primitive op-amps—that when the schematic was made public, I built one myself; I was in the midst of my DIY years. I thought it was, to use a word from that time, nifty. Paul McGowan went on to other things and other companies, eventually reviving PS Audio and building it into its present form with a wide range of interesting and substantive products. Most recently, PS Audio added a line of loudspeakers inspired by Paul's erstwhile partner in other ventures, the late Arnie Nudell.

The PS Audio Aspen speaker line has four models, three 3-way floorstanders (FR30, FR20, FR10) and a single two-way standmount (the FR5, $3499/pair).

What’s in a name? Joe Finn of Timonium, Maryland’s Gramophone clearly knows the answer. He brought a compact system to CAF, one stocked with overachieving gear and equally ambitious cables, courtesy of AudioQuest.

The least surprising story in music today is the inevitable passing of irreplaceable talent. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson died at age 95 the day I finished this salute to another fallen star, Southern California singer/songwriter John David "JD" Souther.