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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?

Robert Gaboury stands with his little Gemme Audio Soprano.

...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.

<I>Stereophile</I>'s star blogger Stephen Mejias hold forth at the debate on why he is in love with vinyl, while Robert Deutsch (center) and Art Dudley (right) wait to chime in with their opinions.

<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.

i saw a familiar face when I went into the Veloce room, as Mark Conti, who designed the unusual Impact speakers from a few years back, is now involved in this line of battery-powered amplification. My eyes were attracted by the Veloce Platino LFT-1 linestage in the photo ($12,500), which will run for 70 hours before needing recharging, but driving the Marten speakers in the room via Purist cables was a pair of battery-power monoblocks ($12,000/pair). Battery power? Yes, the input stage, based on a 6922 tube, is transformer-coupled to a high-efficiency class-D output stage based on the Hypex module designed by famed Dutch engineer Bruno Putzys. A charge will last 40&#150;80 hours depending on the speaker's load impedance, Mark told me.