LATEST ADDITIONS

Whether large in scope and scale or just a few small rooms at the end of a hotel hallway, I get a kick out of hi-fi shows…

The room was small, approximately square, with low ceilings, and—like all the rooms I visited at the show—very yellow…

My Friday-morning train from upstate New York arrived in Manhattan ahead of schedule—how often does that happen?—giving me the luxury of walking, rather than taking a subway or a cab, to the Park Lane Hotel, located on West 59th Street: this year's venue for the New York Audio Show. By the time I reached the Park Lane Hotel's posh-minus entrance, I felt as though I'd entered a whole different world—but this time I wasn't sneering. Indeed, I was wondering: what would it take for all these people of means to take interest in our little world of handmade electronics and rare phono cartridges and loudspeakers that were surely meant to be enjoyed in the largest and grandest of rooms? For people who are used to the best of everything, is high-end audio really that big a leap?

Simple Gifts, a new live recording from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS), is filled with eminently accessible, decidedly optimistic American music written between 1854 and 1993. Its frequently dance-worthy melodic beauty makes for a most lovely 77 minutes of pure pleasure, and is conducive to both focused listening and background enjoyment. Available as both a 24/48 download from HDTracks (which I auditioned) and other sites, as well as in CD form, the recording reflects the positive, "new world" outlook that inspired many of its compositions.

Saturday November 5, 1–7pm, Toronto's Wynn Audio , who demonstrated a Goldmund-Tidal-Thales system costing $1,135,196 at last weekend's TAVES show, are opening their new showroom at Unit 31-20 Wertheim Court, Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3A8.

It was all so familiar. In "Music in the Round" in the January 2016 issue, Kal Rubinson praised JL Audio's latest subwoofer, the Fathom f113v2. He raved about its amplifier's higher power over the original f113, its beefier 13" woofer, its improved, 18-band Digital Automatic Room Optimization (DARO), and its significantly improved deep-bass response in-room.

It was familiar because the same thing had happened when Kal reviewed the original Fathom f113 in his May 2007 column. As he would again nine years later, he'd extolled the sub's high power, small size, built-in single-band Automatic Room Optimization (ARO) software, and "remarkably powerful and clean" deep bass. Those were also my reactions to the Fathom f113.

Let us pretend . . . you have a pair of loudspeakers that have proven themselves to sound articulate and musically responsive in your room, without excess boom, bloom, or frail leanness. They mate with your décor and impress your friends. But maybe you're bored, and feel certain that your speakers would sound better with a better amplifier than the one you have now. Maybe you feel an urge to spend money? Perhaps a new amp will make your records sound the way you imagine they should sound?

I have had these thoughts many times.