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But the Cutest Amp of Show Award has to go to Mass Fidelity's "lil_doosey." You see? It's even cute about how it spells its name. You gotta love that.

The two Sashas of Obad Imports (l-r): Sascha Kuettel hefts the JohnBlue JB3 loudspeaker ($370/pair), while Sasha Obad struggles with the KingRex T20 amplifier ($259) and PSU power supply ($189). These units are just a little bit heavier than Michael Fremer's reference amplifiers.

High-end audio companies take different approaches to staying successful. One way to maintain a market position is to continue improving fundamental designs, offering a little higher sonic performance with each model. The latest products from a company employing this approach will look and operate very much like their first products.

Threshold is one of the longest-surviving high-end audio companies. Founded in the 1970s by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1191pass">Nelson Pass</A> and Ren&#233; Besne, it was acquired by a large, publicly traded corporation in 1988. This had both positive and negative results in that Threshold was then able to expand its activities, adding the cost-effective Fort&#233; line of products, but energies were drained away from cutting-edge design. Besne left the company in 1991, while Pass resigned in 1992 to pursue other interests. (These blossomed into the Pass Aleph 0 amplifier reviewed by DO in March '95, Vol.18 No.3.)

I am led by the sound of intricate rhythms and interesting textures, and I find myself in the <a href="http://www.audio-occasion.qc.ca/">Audio D'Occasion</a> suite, where Radiohead's <i>Amnesiac</i> is ripping into a pair of Thiel CS3.7 floorstanders, sending the speaker's impressive corrugated drivers into a mad dance. I take a seat.

I had enthused over the sound being produced by French company Focal's top-line Grande Utopia EMs ($180,000/pair) in our report from the <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2008/101408focalbest/">2008 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest</A>, so the first room I went to at the 2009 SSI was the room featuring the exact same pair of Grande Utopias. In Denver they had been driven by Boulder source and amplification components; in Montreal, amplification was all YBA&#151;Passion 1000 monoblocks and Passion preamp&#151;cabling was AudioQuest, and the source was the excellent sounding Esoteric P-01VU transport ($32,000) and D-01VU dual-mono D/A converter ($32,000), clocked by the G-0Rb high-precision master clock ($16,000).

You get used to hearing expensive over-the-top systems at an audio Show, but the real delight is discovering more affordable set-ups that sound better than you expect. Such was the case when I entered the Bluebird Music room, where the Spendor A6 two-way tower speakers were being demmed with Exposure's 3010S integrated amplifier and an Exposure CD player, wired with van den Hul cable. The total system prices was $7500, and, again playing "The Mooche" from <I>Editor's Choice</I>, I was struck by how seamless the presentation was, with natural tonal qualities, well-defined stereo imaging, and good dynamics, if not quite in the same class as the much more expensive system featuring the Avantgarde horns I had heard just before.