LATEST ADDITIONS

Nelson Pass is up to good again. Following the wonderful sound of Ella and Billy I heard in the corridor, I discovered Nelson's prototype open-baffle speaker system. It sports both a Lowther PM6A full-range driver and a pair of SEAS W26 10" woofers. The 40"-high open baffle, which at this stage of the game is not intended to be a final design statement, has no side panels, only a central brace in the rear. The system was bi-amped, with the Lowther driver fed using a 60Hz, 6dB/octave high-pass filter feeding a First Watt F3 7Wpc JFET amplifier. The woofers were driven by a Pass Labs XA30.5 fed by a 12dB/octave active crossover. No equalization was employed. That the sound was so good was especially amazing, considering that the digital front end was pieced together at the last minute after the originally intended computer drive arrived minus its charger chord. I look forward to hearing the finished product.

According to Marjorie Stiefel, who with her husband Al slaves over the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest for months on end, this year's RMAF has 142 exhibit rooms, 29 more than last year. The show, has in fact, not only reached the hotel’s size limit—the DTC Marriott is Denver's third-largest—but also exceeded Marjorie's and Al’s energetic capacity. Fried to a crisp beyond the smile, the couple is considering hiring help for next year in order to meet increased demand from such major players as Linn, McIntosh, Esoteric, dCS, Kimber, Wilson, BAT, Gamut, Clearaudio, Edge, Ayre, Nordost...you name them.

The fourth annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is taking place this weekend at the Denver Tech Center Marriott. Registration was up 15% this year; snapped in the line in front of the registration desk at 9am was erstwhile <I>Stereophile</I> staffer Jonathan Scull (sensible suit, smart tie, and flashy glasses), these days a successful PR and marketing consultant.

John Atkinson and Jason Serinus will be reporting live from RMAF 2007.

Huckleberry is a meticulous groomer&mdash;as long as he doesn't have to strain himself reaching any of his nether bits.

Have we missed a dimension of time?

Luke Burbank attempted to interview Sigur Ros on NPR. Watch the video to realize how difficult it is to conduct an interview when the interviewee isn't a self-winding talking points machine.