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SSI seems to feature a higher proportion than usual of rooms sponsored by high-end dealers, and one of the best sounds I experienced was in the room from Montreal dealer Son-Or Filtronique. The top-line, multi-box dCS Scarlatti SACD front-end (soon to be reviewed for <I>Stereophile</I> by Mikey Fremer) drove Audio Research electronics (Reference 3 preamp and Reference 110 amplifier) with speakers the impressive Kliimt from Vienna Acoustics. Cabling was all Shunyata. Corinne Bailey Rae's perfomance of Joni Mitchell's "River," from the Herbie Hancock CD of the same name, was reproduced with midrange to die for, though the low frequencies were a touch over-ripe, I thought.

Lafleur's X-1 bookshelf ($14,000/pair) was one of the hits of <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/fsi2008/040608lafleur/">last year's Montreal Show</A> despite the poor acoustics of the room they were being shown in, so I was looking forward to taking a further listen this year in a better room. Driven by an all-Simaudio Evolution series rig&#151;Andromeda CD player and i-7 integrated amplifier&#151;the X1s did indeed produce a superby detailed, natural-sounding midrange and treble, but the low frequencies seemed a little shelved down in absolute terms, I thought.

Do you think going from physical recordings with liner notes and cover-art to metadata on a PC's hard drive, we've lost the desire to immerse ourselves in the music that goes with it? Do you think that the demise of the physical medium, bringing us music, correlates with the demise of serious listening?

The Sashas of <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/obad_imports/">Obad Imports</a> suggested that I check out the Gemme Audio room, where a Neodio amplifier had been replaced by a prototype KingRex 50W Tripath amplifier. Gemme Audio's Robert Gaboury had his special Phenix Green Gem system ($37,000 CAN) on display, along with a Neodio CD player, and Blueberry Hill Audio cables.

...was how SSI organizer Michel Plante had billed our "Ask the Editors" session, and (from left to right), Stephen Mejias, Robert Deutsch, and Art Dudley joined me in an animated discussion. Topics covered included the vinyl revivial, whether there is still a role for paper magazines in an Internet world, how does someone become a reviewer, and will Blu-ray be a viable medium for high-quality music.

An Audio Show wouldn't be an Audio Show without live music, to allow Showgoers to recalibrate their ears. The 2009 SSI featured two concerts, one by jazz pianist and singer Anne Bisson, the other by the Michel Donato Trio, seen here, with Donato on double bass, <A HREF="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/1982">Jon Gearey</A> on guitar, and Marin Nasturica on accordion. Both acts have audiophile sound-quality CDs available from Montreal's Fidelio Audio, and other news from SSI was that these recordings are now available as 24-bit, 96kHz files.

<I>Stereophile</I> readers often wonder about how products are chosen for review, and, as I said at the SSI "Ask the Editors" panel discussion, the Monitor Audio Platinum 200 provides a case in point.