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Discovering music as it is being recorded—singer Holly Cole seeks that kind of spontaneity on her recordings including her latest, Dark Moon on Rumpus Room/UMG Records. As she put it, she wanted this record with her longtime quartet to capture "the moment when the light turns on for us."

"On Dark Moon, you hear the essence of when we discover a song," she said during a recent interview. "We had very brief rehearsals, and then went in and recorded. I had a lot of faith in this band, and that's why I cherry-picked them. They know me, they know I'm a minimalist, and we were able to arrange in the studio. Some of the tracks are first takes. The more complex the arrangement, the longer it took. They are all three, four takes at the most. People have to be hard listeners in this band, or it will fail. That's the case on Temptation, and that's on this record."

It's not unusual for audiophiles to have fond childhood recollections of the old family stereo, but Eelco Grimm's memory of his dad's audio system probably stands alone. It's not just that Piet Grimm, a professional pilot for the Dutch air defense, had a pair of very fine Infinity speakers, a Pioneer receiver, and a Technics turntable. Others surely did, too. It's more that he purchased the system from a military PX shop at a US air force base in Germany, then happily flew the equipment home to the Netherlands on his Northrop F5 supersonic fighter plane. That's not run-of-the-mill cool, that's Top Gun cool.

Years later, Eelco, too, started taking stereo gear to new altitudes, becoming a designer of high-end speakers and electronics. After Grimm Audio, a 15-person enterprise, moved to a building near Eindhoven airport in the southern Netherlands, he realized that it stands in almost the exact spot where his dad used to park his fighter jet.

Holy cannoli—was there bass in retailer Laliberté Électronique’s room. But not just bass. Also transparent mids, smooth highs, and floods of detail blowing through a vast soundstage. Even so, there’s no doubt this system was configured to appease the bass gods.

Lenbrook Americas was demoing a couple of systems in its room, all DALI–NAD–Kimber Kable configurations.

Audio Research? That’s right! The iconic brand, now owned by Val Cora of Acora Acoustics, is not only back in circulation but was making beautiful music at the ’fest via its just-released, dual-channel, fully differential, 100Wpc solid state S-100 integrated amplifier ($16,500) and LS-3 preamp, equipped with optional phono and DAC modules ($15,500 altogether).

Linn brand ambassador Lorenzo Pacitti earnestly offered demos in Room 481, and I happily obliged.

It’s 3am on a Sunday morning. I must complete my tasks before Mark Henninger is awake. There are a handful of rooms left, beginning with Room 265, where Supreme Acoustic Systems brought on Soulnote and others.