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Partygoer Vince Scalzitti's Tri-Cell Enterprises is Canadian distributor for no fewer than 19 product lines, from Acapella to Vandersteen. Vince is so low-key that he hardly seems to be in a business that involves sales, but he's highly successful at it.

Gerard Rejskind (left), editor of UHF magazine, and last year's recipient of the SSI Lifetime Achievement Award, is pictured here with Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield (right).

One of the two Lifetime Achievement Awards was given to Richard Petit, President of KeébecSon. The presentation was made by Richard's daughter, Marie-Eve, and was the most touching event at the party.

The speaker of choice in the Audioville room was the brand new KEF Blade ($30,000/pair): a consumer-friendly version of something that started life as a KEF concept speaker. (In particular, in order to reduce costs, the latter's carbon-fiber enclosure has been replaced with one made of a composite resin.) Mid frequencies and treble are handled by the metal-diaphragm KEF UNI-Q array, while low frequencies are given over to two pairs of side-mounted 9" drivers, working in tandem so that bass energy is neither wasted nor allowed to travel through the enclosure structure to modulate the higher frequencies.

In the Audioville room, Chord Electronics of England demonstrated their Red Reference CD player ($26,000), now in Mk.III form. Refinements include a fully motorized transport door, plus a true asynchronous USB input. The player's D/A section, which offers up to 192kHz capability, eschews the use of DAC chips from other manufacturers, its pulse array being designed and constructed entirely by Chord. Styling is on a par with the underlying technology—which is to say, a bit breathtaking.

The VTL MB185 Series IIIs, which sounded great driving the Wilson Sophia Series 3 loudspeakers, offer a choice between XLR and RCA inputs—and, according to designer Luke Manley, they can develop fully balanced performance with single-ended inputs. Their EL34-based output sections can also be switched between triode and tetrode operation.

Happily, the big Coup de Foudre also included an analog front: a combination turntable and tonearm package from German manufacturer AMG, bundled with a Benz LP phono cartridge ($21,500 for the package).