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With their matching wide, distinctly un-stylish yellow ties and dark blue suits, the men of the Sibelius Piano Trio hardly look like world-class musicians. But once you hear their two-CD set from Yarlung Records, best appreciated via stereo and multi-channel DSD downloads from NativeDSD.com, you'll understand why their debut recording of trios by Sibelius and contemporary composers deserves a place in your collection.

Never in the history of our venerable "Records To Die For" feature has the word Die come to mean as much as it has in the past year. Merle Haggard, Phife Dawg, Rudy Van Gelder, Maurice White, Glenn Frey, Otis Clay, Blowfly, Bob Cranshaw, George Martin, Steve Young, Chips Moman, Lonnie Mack, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Sharon Jones, Leon Russell, Ralph Stanley, David Bowie—all died in the past year. So to drive away any evil spirits that may be hovering over this year's R2D4 extravaganza, we may need to think of this 2017 installment more as "Records to Live For."

On Thursday January 26, from 5–8:30pm, Hi-Fi Sales (1732 Route 70, East Cherry Hill, NJ 08003) is hosting an event featuring the Technics Premium C700 Series of components and the new SL-1200GAE/G turntable.

On Saturday January 28, 10am–7pm, and Sunday January 29, 11am–5pm, the Paragon Sight & Sound Fine Audio Show will present world-class, high-performance, home-audio products in the private rooms of Chicago's world-renowned Symphony Center (220 South Michigan Avenue).

On the final day of the show, our special guest, ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and our very own Jason Victor Serinus came together to form the most unlikely of duos. We originally attempted to film this while in a moving gondola but were sternly prohibited from doing so by the gondola ride manager.

My first attempt at writing this piece began with a list of the Top Ten Audio Products I Wish Were Still in Production. Unfortunately, that proved unworkable. Although some of my selections—the Audio Research SP-6C preamplifier, the Stax ELS-F81 loudspeaker—were straightforward, it turned out that most of the others were burdened with complications. Examples: It's no longer feasible to mass-produce Bakelite headshells for a revival of the original Ortofon SPU or similar phono pickup. It's no longer possible to obtain the precisely correct vacuum tubes and other components required to return to production the Leak Stereo 20 amplifier. And I'm certain that a torch- and pitchfork-wielding mob would prevent the manufacture of an authentic Altec 604B drive-unit, unless those audio villagers were first allowed to "improve" the design.

On January 23, 2017, telecoms company Sprint acquired 33% of the Tidal music streaming service. According to the press release jointly issued by the two companies, the deal guarantees that Tidal, which now claims a catalog of over 42.5 million songs and 140,000 "high quality videos," will become available to Sprint's 45,000,000 retail customers, who will gain "unlimited access to exclusive artist content not available anywhere else."