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"Daedalus Audio and ModWright Instruments have teamed up to show how good a sound you can get for close to $15k," Daedalus' Lou Hinkley explained as I entered the room. Indeed, for as much as I could hear over a very loud conversation, the sound of a track from River, Herbie Hancock's Tribute to Joni Mitchell, and another from a Norah Jones album was very, very nice.

During the brief amount of time I spent at CES 2012 in Las Vegas, one of my most impressive acquaintances was with the new Dynaudio Xeo 5 ($4500/pair) floorstander and Dynaudio Xeo 3 ($2300/pair) bookshelf wireless loudspeakers. Sold complete with a wireless transmitter and remote control, these loudspeakers deliver astonishingly good sound without need to spend money on speaker cables and the like.

In the second of four rooms from Sunny Components, Inc., Michael Manousselis paired Dynaudio's Confidence C2 Signature loudspeakers ($15,000/pair) with Boulder's 1021 Digital Player ($24,000), 1010 preamplifier ($14,000), and 850 monoblock amplifiers ($11,500/pair). Arrayed on a Finite Elemente Reference Rack ($15,000). Everything was connected with Transparent cable. The superb highs on this system immediately clarified why Dynaudio's Esotar2 tweeter has garnered so much praise.

Gary Katayama of Affordable Audio constructed a system that allowed Randy Bankert's Sonist Concerto loudspeakers ($5895/pair) to show how much sound they can deliver. With apologies for my potentially flawed attempts at deciphering Gary's handwriting, I heard the Baetis Media Server ($2595) and Mach 2 Mac mini (approx. $1000) using Amarra 2.3, Human Audio Table USB–S/PDIF converter ($1000), Bel Canto 3.5 USB DAC ($3500), Audion 300B amplifier ($5500), EAT E-Flat turntable ($6000), and Synergistic Tranquility Base ($1000). The soundstage was impressively big, and the sound warm but overly smooth, to the point of softening the leading edge on Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's glorious mezzo-soprano.

I have always greatly admired the match of Robert Lee's Acoustic Zen loudspeakers—in this case the wonderful Crescendo loudspeaker ($16,000/pair), a 3-way transmission line design with a horn-loaded ribbon tweeter—with the Triode Corporation electronics imported by Santy Oropel of TWIN Audio Video. Here, the Crescendos formed an especially sonorous alliance with the TRV-CD5SE CD player ($3250), TRX-1 remote controlled tube preamplifier ($3200), and TRX-M845SE monoblock power amplifiers ($22,500/pair).

I fell in love with the adorable little system from Chris Sommovigo's The Signal Collection when I heard it play some of Todd Garfinkle's M•A Recordings at AXPONA 2012 in Jacksonville. In Newport Beach the love affair continued.

Finally I had a chance to hear the loudspeakers lauded by Stereophile equipment reviewers, the Voxativ Ampeggio Signature by Schimmel ($32,500/pair). This single-driver, ultra-sensitive speaker headlined an excellent line-up from Alfred Kainz's highend-electronics, Inc. that led me to write in my notes, "Beautiful. Remarkably close to natural sound. The highs are wonderful, especially the cymbals."