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Totem always makes a splash at shows; this time the demos featured the Element series that was introduced at the 2011 Las Vegas CES. As a nod to the Image part of the name of the show, they also had a huge screen with four commercial-grade projectors, and a very stylish video presentation. The man with the "Einstein" hair on the left side in the picture is Totem president Vince Bruzzese, one of the recipients of SSI's Lifetime Achievement awards.

Totem was demonstrating its new Element series loudspeakers with the Classé CA-M600 600W monoblocks that I enthusiastically reviewed in the March issue of Stereophile. The three Element models—the Fire stand-mount at $5995/pair, the floorstanding Earth at $8995/pair, and Metal at $12,995/pair—all use a new 7" woofer designed and manufactured in-house. But what's with the tie around the guy's head in the wall-sized photo?

To exhibit at CES, you'd better have deep pockets, and while, to a lesser extent, the same is true about exhibiting in the large rooms at SSI, the venue also permits small companies to set up displays in the nooks and crannies of the hotel corridor, with correspondingly lower price tags. Audio Sensibility offers a line of high-end audio and video cables that use Ohno Continuous Cast (OCC) copper and silver wire, Furutech connectors, cryogenic treatment of all wire and connectors, Mundorf silver-gold and supreme silver-gold solder, and their own custom-manufactured stainless-steel connector bodies.

Not just the public attendees made for the Aux 33 Tours room at SSI. Seen here browsing the jazz LPs (in denim jacket and deshabillé hair) is Graeme Humfrey, one of the proprietors of Montreal high-end retailer Coup de Foudre.

I don't know who came up with the idea of having the female SSI staff wear blue wigs—as they have been doing for the past two years—but I think the idea was a brilliant one. The blue wigs not only make the staff instantly identifiable, but they communicate a sense of fun, and that's just what the show is. It also helps that the staff are unfailingly pleasant and cheerful.

Keith Pray, Publisher of Source Interlink Media web sites, is thrilled to announce the April preview launch of InnerFidelity, a new website dedicated to playing well with personal audio.