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Pepcom is an event organizer that brings together a smattering of technology companies, members of the press, and various forms of the grilled chicken sandwich. Here are the products from the world of audio and its extended fingers that intrigued and appalled.

Our corporate IT department has informed us that they will be performing some server and network upgrades in the production data center today (June 22). Starting at 3:00PM Eastern (12:00PM Pacific) this website will be offline for several hours. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Register to win a set of Monitor Audio Airstream WS100 speakers (MSRP $399.00) we are giving away.

According to the company:

If you're one of the millions who store and play music from a desktop or laptop, Monitor Audio has designed the WS100 wireless audio system with you in mind. It comprises a pair of stylish cube speakers with amps and wireless receiver on-board. The matching, compact monitors, just 5" in dimension, are precision engineered to deliver clean wideband lossless audio from any computer in seconds. Simply position the speakers, plug-in the USB transmitter and play CD quality sound wire-free.

[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]

A small subset of audiophiles (always men—the especially old and joyless ones, I suspect) are sick of reading about my adventures in domesticity: They've been there, done that, and managed to do it far better than I. Good for them. Really, I'm glad they're so wise, mature, and experienced that they would spend their free time pounding out frenzied letters to the editor, caps firmly locked, disparaging my taste in music, my relationships with women, my choice of loudspeaker.

Talk about a fascinating personal history. Rising-star jazz pianist Aaron Diehl's father ran a funeral home in Columbus, Ohio, with a largely African-American clientele. Diehl started at the piano with Bach, and not long after was playing in both the funeral home and a nearby Catholic church. I think the significance of those early experiences is not so much that a young teenager was already playing for audiences, but rather that he was playing in the context of rituals and, in the case of the funeral home, emotionally fraught major life transitions. I suspect that Diehl's unusual backstory is a large contributing factor in his musical maturity and poised artistic approach.

I threw away all of the original jewel cases to my CDs. The CDs themselves are in a Case Logic CD Binder. Before throwing the cases away, I adored each title’s artwork and reminisced on each album’s place in my personal history.

It was hard to say goodbye, but the cases were taking up too much space.

On Thursday, June 13th, British hi-fi mainstay Bowers & Wilkins and Italian luxury car manufacturer Maserati brought their Seven Notes World Tour to the Industria Superstudio in New York City’s Meatpacking District. The event presented the B&W-designed in-car audio system, the new B&W 805 Maserati Edition loudspeaker, and a performance from Howie B.