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Lenny Abramov thought he found immortality in Eunice Park, the woman who gave him the will to live. He thought he found it in his job, where he sweat endlessly soaking through his acrylic shirts while mindlessly serving Joshie, a back-stabbing “friend”. Eunice would leave him too. In fact, the only true happiness Abramov ever found and returned to were the sounds of his mother and father’s native Russian tongue, their coddling words and thick, laborious accents. In their speech, he could reconnect to the compassion they shared, the basketball they played, and his basement bedroom. Abramov’s parents were the only thing he had, until they died. He was left with bells “tolling, deep and sonorous and thoroughly Russian.” Lenny never chose his parents. He never chose their boundless affection. It was the sound of bells at their deathbeds that reminded him he was loved.

Most audiophiles know Mobile Fidelity as the record company with the philosophy of resurrecting old, important, recorded performances and re-releasing them with (hopefully) the kind of sound they should have had in the first place. Few audiophiles are aware that Mobile Fidelity is also the name of a (different) recording company which collects sound effects in four channels for motion picture and television post-production.

The Marantz ST-74 tuner, reviewed in Vol.8 No.7, was described as having "butter-and-marmalade appearance and AM performance, but dry-toast FM." The latest offering from Marantz, the ST551 (footnote 1), has not quite as sweet AM or appearance, but its more palatable FM makes it one of the best-sounding tuners encountered. It doesn't lack features either—remote control of manual tuning, scan, band selection, and presets—all at a fairly low price.

It had been many years since Stephen or I had been to Irving Plaza, but an invitation from Klipsch would grant us another encounter. Performances that evening included neo-punk new wave group the Tom Tom Club featuring Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums), both of the Talking Heads, opening for headliner the Psychedelic Furs, a band iconic for their soundtrack chart-topper “Pretty in Pink”.

In a partnership with Live Nation, Irving Plaza, a Live Nation-owned venue, redubbed itself “Irving Plaza Powered by Klipsch” as we discovered on the billboard under the marquee.

Michael Kakadelis, known professionally as Mike Kay, the New York retailer who owned and ran Lyric for 45 years, died on Saturday, July 14 at age 89.

As you can see from the massive 1930s cinema-style horn system that graced the Crowne Plaza’s Salon I, there was a significant retro vibe to the 2012 Capital Audiofest, something that became clear as I started my sweep of the second-floor rooms.

Lunch and live music both over, it was time to head back to the exhibits. First stop on the third floor was one of the rooms from Metro Washington DC retailer Command AV, featuring DeVore Fidelity’s Orangutan/96 speakers ($12,000/pair). Combining the unorthodox coupling of a 1” silk-dome tweeter with a 10” paper-cone woofer in a stunningly finished, wider-than-it-is deep enclosure, the O/96 offers a equally stunningly high sensitivity of 96dB/W/m. I had heard the O/96s at Artie Dudley’s a couple of weeks back and was impressed by how the O/96 matched the midrange magic of vintage speakers while adding things I deem essential, like highs and lows. The speakers sounded as good at CAF as they had in upstate NY, both speakers and room stepping out of the way of the music on the Ray Brown/Duke Ellington duo LP This One’s For Blanton.