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As far as I can tell, Omaha Audio has no connection with the city in Nebraska: its headquarters are in California, and the products are made in China&mdash;but "created, designed and checked in the USA." The system they were playing used their own speaker (named, fittingly enough, the Omaha Speaker), a fairly large two-way with some resemblance to Sonus Faber products ($2000/pair), the Omaha Tube CD player ($1600), and the OD-300B single-ended-triode integrated amplifier ($1400, photographed here by Larry Greenhill). At the <I>Stereophile</I> Ask the Editors session, Sam Tellig was raving about this amplifier and the value it represented. Based on the sound of the system (smooth, highly musical) I have to agree with him.

Remember the name: Salagar Sonics. It's the name of a new American speaker company, whose first product, the Salagar S210 ($7500/pair), still in prototype form, made a strong impression at HE 2007. It's an active two-way&mdash;digital crossover; the amp uses the latest B&O ICE module&mdash;with a Scanspeak AirCirc tweeter and a 10" Peerless VIFA mid-bass driver, in an unusually-shaped (and highly inert) enclosure. I thought these speakers sounded terrific: lively, low in coloration, and with excellent imaging.

I never know what to expect at the "Ask the Editors" sessions, traditionally moderated by <I>Stereophile</I> editor John Atkinson (above). Sometimes we get a lot of people looking for advice on potential purchases of equipment, questions about arcane aspects of amplifier design, questions about cables, about double-blind testing, where the future of audio lies, and, of course, questions about what we thought of the sound in specific rooms at the Show. This time, many of the questions dealt with, of all things, music! There were opinions expressed about the major symphony orchestras of today <I>vs</I> those of the past, and great performances available on LPs. Don't these people know that we're all supposed to be a bunch of equipment-loving geeks?

They were a hit at last year's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, so I asked Bob Cordell (resting his dogs in the photo), Peter "PJay" Smith, and Darren Kuzma to give a repeat performance of their seminars on amplifier and loudspeaker performance at HE2007. These ran throughout the Show, and I kept being stopped in the corridor by audiophiles who would say something like "Now I know what tube amplifier clipping sounds like" or "Now I know what is meant by 'dynamic range.'" I was reminded by something I had been told years ago, perhaps by Jon Iverson: that the only difference between an audiophile and an ordinary person is that the audiophile had a mentor who showed them how to listen. Bob's, PJay's, and Darren's efforts will create many, many audiophiles.

Understanding the trad of Strad.

When I finally made it through the crowd and into the Music Hall room, I took one look at pasty party animal, Leland Leard, and cried, "<i>Good god, man!</i> How are you feeling?"

Late Sunday afternoon, with only about an hour left before the show closed, it was still standing room only in the Music Hall room. Perhaps that had something to do with the choice of music. I walked in to be greeted by the naughty sounds of the Bear Family Records compilation, <i>Eat to the Beat: the dirtiest of them dirty blues</i>, featuring song titles I can't even mention here.