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Even at low volumes, the sound coming from the Red Wine Audio/Fidelis AV room was detailed, engaging, and easy to enjoy. The system I heard was made of Red Wine’s Isabella vacuum tube preamp/DAC ($4000) and Liliana monoblock power amplifiers ($6000/pair), an MSB transport, Tellurium Q cabling, and a relative newcomer to the Fidelis line, England’s Kudos C20 loudspeakers. While all Red Wine products are battery-powered, the Liliana is especially interesting because it is the first Red Wine amplifier to employ a class-A tube input stage and a class-A/B MOSFET output stage.

Also on display in the Red Wine Audio room was the company’s Audez’e Edition headphone amplifier, optimized for use with the popular Audez’e LCD-2 headphones. The complete system ($4900) includes the amplifier, a set of LCD-2 headphones, and ALO Audio’s new Audez’e headphone cable. If you already own the headphones, however, you can purchase the amp and cable for ($3950). Price includes a very nice carrying case. This happy listener said the system sounded wonderful.

There’s been lots of excitement slash praise over the Bricasti M1 DAC ($7,995) here at Stereophile from the two Johns (that’s Atkinson and Marks for the kids at home), so I made sure to take my chance to hear this DAC. I was struck by the DAC’s analog sensibilities, committing warmth and space to the music, and enjoyed how the minimum phase filters showcased options for gentler roll-offs at higher frequencies, allowing listeners to choose just how much bite and space surrounding each leading edge they care for. Since the supplied speaker stands were not tall enough for seated listeners, Brian Zolner had to stand his Harbeths on dresser drawers. Check out our reviews of the Bricasti M1 here and here

In the Audio Note UK room, managing director Peter Qvortrup demonstrated the company’s new Jinro Shochu power amplifier ($32,250). This is essentially a Jinro integrated amp (see Stereophile’s April 2011 issue) without the volume control and with a single pair of true balanced inputs. During my visit the combination of Jinro Shochu and Audio Note AN-E Lexus Signature loudspeakers ($19,000/pair) sounded natural, engaging, and just plain musical on selections by those two great exponents of British music, Vaughan Williams and Led Zeppelin.

The corner placement required by Audio Note speakers always raises my eyebrows—there was even a mirror next to one of the speakers!—but the sound of Ivan Moravec performing Brahms late piano works, the Op.118 Intermezzi, on a secondhand Turnabout LP, was extraordinarily engaging on the Audio Note AN-E Lexus Signature loudspeakers. This was the last room I visited Saturday night and I didn’t feel the need to visit any more rooms for more music.

At the Audio Arts suite I was enchanted by the sound of my favorite 1960s-era folk trio (although I confess that that wasn't the Corries, whose debut album is seen here in the hands of Audio Arts proprietor Gideon Schwartz). "Tiny Sparrow" and other selections from the cannily titled Peter, Paul & Mary album Moving sounded colorful and clear on a system comprising the Holborne Analog 2 turntable ($5275), Holborne Analog 2 tonearm ($3475), Holborne MC1 cartridge ($1975), David Berning ZOTL preamp with phono stage ($12,300), David Berning ZH230 mono amplifiers ($18,400/pair), and the very interesting Zellaton Concert loudspeakers ($59,750/pair), the drive-units of which—even the tweeter—are all descended from the Pawel laminated metal-foil cone woofer.

I remember being impressed when I looked inside my low-impedance Miyabi 47 phono cartridge and counted approximately 14 turns of wire per channel on its coil former. Haniwa has now produced a cartridge with an even lower number of turns per channel—two!—for an internal impedance of just 0.8 ohms. Nevertheless, Haniwa has used various materials and construction techniques to maintain a quite reasonable output of 0.35mV. The Haniwa HCTR01 cartridge, which is also a notably high-compliance design, is available for $12,000. Michael Fremer reviewed it in his November 2011 “Analog Corner” column.