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The Kennedy Hi-Fi room was showing another product at the show that was creating a buzz: the Audiovector Trapeze loudspeaker ($25,000/pair), another product from Denmark, a country rich in high-end manufacturing. A 3-way floorstanding design, the Trapeze features a proprietary 12" high-power mid/bass driver, a 5" high-speed midrange, and an AMT (Air Motion Transformer) tweeter.

Now that’s what I call truth in advertising, because bliss was served! What sound! What grandeur! What an exquisite example of the best that sound reproduction can offer. Retailer Bliss Acoustics’s room was presenting one of my favorite demoes at the show, proving to me, at least—and this despite the fact that I’m not immune to sometimes feeling resentful toward gear I can’t afford—that the really expensive stuff can be worth the money. It just sounds better. It sounds expensive, in the sense that you know there’s no way you can get this level of performance at a discount.

What speaker design immediately springs to mind when you think of MartinLogan? If you’re like me, the answer is an electrostatic one. Which is why I was momentarily taken aback when I walked into the MartinLogan room and saw on display the more conventional-looking, three-way, floorstanding XT F100 speaker ($5999/pair) from the company’s Motion Series XT, and this despite the fact I’ve known about the Motion Series XT for a couple of years now.