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I walked into the larger of Joseph Audio's two demonstration rooms—the one shared with Nagra and Kronos—just in time to hear Neil Young's "There's a World" and "Bad Fog of Loneliness," from the Live at Massey Hall LP. The performances—and Young's very funny between-song patter—were thoroughly convincing, and even in this large space, there was a sense of the Joseph Audio Pearl 3 floorstanders ($US31,500/pair) pressurizing the room to realistic good effect. I loved the Pearl 3s—and so, apparently, did Nagra's Classic Amp ($US16,000), a 100Wpc stereo amp that runs in class-A for its first 10 watts.

The room sponsored by Montreal dealer Audiophonie was like a treasure trove of interesting things/pair—tubes! horns! turntables with tall platters!—and when I first arrived, it was filled with nearly a dozen men speaking French in such animated tones that I felt as though I had stumbled upon a meeting of an especially enthusiastic audio society. I did not feel left out for long: the room's host, audio designer Robert Gaboury, made me feel welcome, and explained that his very good sounding Arteluthe Cadenza loudspeakers ($CDN24,000/pair) were a two-way design with a specified sensitivity of 97dB.

It will come as no surprise that audio journalists find their greatest professional pleasure in writing about things—playback gear, recordings, what-have-you—with which they are wildly impressed, and that their second-favorite topics are things that are genuinely and comically awful. But the fact of the matter is, at audio shows, most systems don't fall into either of those categories: most systems at shows range between "listenable" and "pretty darn good"—and there's nothing wrong with that. So here's one of the pretty darn good systems: a combination, found in the room of Quebec dealer Audio D'occasion, of the Atoll CD200 CD player ($CDN2200), Atoll IN200 integrated amplifier ($CDN2200), and Dali Opticon 8 loudspeakers ($CDN5000/pair), all cabled-up with products from Nordost.

And You Scream Into The Night

Gotta have a Robbie!

Because my train from Albany, NY arrived ahead of schedule, there was just enough daylight for me to photograph Montreal's Bonaventure Hotel—formerly the Hilton Bonaventure—which, from Friday March 18 through Sunday March 20, is the site of the brand new Montreal Salon Audio. As some of you will recall (see our recent story), Montreal's heretofore long-running Salon Son et Image was "deferred" by its organizers, on account of too few manufacturers and dealers willing to sign up as exhibitors at the once-iconic show. But then the show's previous organizers, Michel Plante and Sarah Tremblay, stepped in and put together this new Montreal show—and the new not-for-profit organization behind it—in less time than it takes most of us to plan a trip to the grocery store.

Until Zenith, the first release on his own label, Inner Voice Jazz, pianist Marc Copland had never played with trumpeter Ralph Alessi, but they prove an ideal match. Joined by bassist Drew Gress (who has long played with both musicians) and drummer Joey Baron (who can play anything with anybody), this might turn out to be a "classic quartet."