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The family-owned electronics chain Son X Plus sponsored a number of exhibits at SSI, including this active display of Skech wireless headphones, in a rainbow of colors. I gave them a brief try—not the pink ones—and was mildly impressed at the progress being made in Bluetooth audio.

I have a fondness for electrostatic transducers, and one of my early stretch-the-budget audio equipment purchases was a pair of Stax Lambda headphones. So I was happy to see the display of Stax headphones at SSI 2014. They even had one that looked like a descendent of my Lambda: the $3495 SRS-5170. My Lambda still works, but the foam inside the earpiece has deteriorated. I should get it fixed...

One of the popular exhibits at previous Montreal shows has been the Personal Audio Zone, at which attendees could listen to a wide variety of headphones. This has been retained at SSI 2014, but with the difference that people could actually buy headphones. At least, that was the idea.

As reported previously in Stereophile, the Montreal Salon Son & Image is now owned by the UK-based Chester Group, but with Sarah Tremblay continuing as the director of the Montreal show. (Sarah is also the manager of the upcoming New York Audio Show.) On hand at the Montreal show were (left to right) show organizer Scott Humphrey, Chester Group Chairman and Founder Roy Bird, and Sarah Tremblay.

Michel Plante, previously co-producer of SSI, and now doing marketing for Audio Plus/Plurison, sent me an invitation to a special Press Breakfast on Friday morning, at which a new project involving Rega turntables would be introduced. He seemed most disappointed when I told him that I would not be at the show until Friday afternoon, so I would not be able to attend the event. Fortunately, Art Dudley was there in time, and he has posted a report. All I can do is provide another picture.

Here's a closer look at one of Plurison's customized Regas. The face motif, according to Michel Plante, plays on the idea that an LP has two "faces" (French for "sides"), and the notion that music itself has many faces. Exact prices were not immediately available, but the plan is to sell each of the silk-screened Regas for 15% above the normal price; all of that premium will go directly to the artists who created the designs.

It only looks as though Steve Silberman of Audioquest is trying to ignore a corpse behind the loudspeakers; in actual fact he's explaining the finer points of JRiver playback software—a topic in which he is remarkably conversant—while a colleague works on their system's cabling.