LATEST ADDITIONS

Totem's Vince Bruzzese was happy to tell me about the Wind Design, an enhanced version of the company's flagship floorstander. It uses a "skid plate" decoupling system with a front "claw" which is user-adjustable to complement the phase interactions between the speaker and various associated electronics. Totem strives to create loudspeakers that will mate happily with all sorts of associated equipment, and today they were making music with an Arcam FMJ disc player and Bryston amplification.

Until the Recording Industry Association of America hit the headlines in recent years with its antipiracy campaign, the initials RIAA meant one thing to seasoned audiophiles: the vinyl-disc equalization characteristic introduced in the 1950s to standardize what had previously been an anarchy of different EQs. Three decades later, as CD gained ascendance, a large proportion of audiophiles still knew what RIAA equalization was, and a good number of them had some idea or better of what the RIAA EQ curve looked like, and why it was applied.

It is just about as beautiful a day as you can imagine. You can see both the sun and the moon in this clear, blue sky. It is the kind of day that you hope for throughout the cold, winter months.

<B>THE BEACH BOYS: <I>Sunflower</I></B><BR>
Caribou/Brother/Epic ZK 46950. Stephen W. Desper, eng. TT: 36:48<BR>
<B>THE BEACH BOYS: <I>Surf's Up</I></B><BR>
Caribou/Brother/Epic ZK 46951. Stephen W. Desper, eng. TT: 33:36<BR>
<B>THE BEACH BOYS: <I>Holland</I></B><BR>
Caribou/Brother/Epic ZK 46952. Stephen Moffitt, Rob Fraboni, engs. TT: 48:13<BR>
All three: CD only. The Beach Boys, prods. Digitally remastered by Joe Gastwirt. AAD.

Okay, so I'm outside the hotel, attempting to take a photograph of the show banner, but it's far too dark to capture adequately. After a few failed attempts, I give up, and decide to go for a quick walk. It's not too cold and I'm not too tired, and I may not have another chance at this.

Back in the winter of 1999, just a few months before I started working for <i>Stereophile</i>, I took a month-long train trip. One of my first stops was in Montreal. I could not have spent more than three or four days there, but they were a very fulfilling and memorable three or four days.

I've been enthusiastically tracking the development of Bel Canto's class-D amplifiers, from their original <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/442">TriPath-based models</A> to their <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/1106mitr">more recent designs</A> based on Bang &amp; Olufsen's ICEpower modules. With each step, Bel Canto has improved their amps' sound quality and reliability.