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Love it or loathe it, Internet music is here to stay.

I never "got" the spurs with which Jimmie Lee Robinson provided a percussive accompaniment to his singing and guitar playing, but I became a fan of Jimmie Lee's when I saw him perform on two successive nights at <A HREF="http://www.acousticsounds.com">Acoustic Sounds</A>' first blues festival in Salina, Kansas in September 1998. His subsequent live appearances at Consumer Electronics Shows and at HI-FI '99, Home Entertainment 2001, and HE2002 on behalf of Acoustic Sounds' associated <A HREF="http://www.analogueproductions.com">APO label</A>, were highlights of those events. (I took the accompanying photo at Jimmie Lee's May 31 <A HREF="http://www.homeentertainment-expo.com">HE2002</A&gt; gig in New York with harmonica player Wild Child Butler.)

With this review I conclude an audiophile's progression through the price/performance ratios of three very musical solid-state integrated amplifiers: the NAD C370 ($699, reviewed in January 2002), the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/516/">Arcam DiVA A85</A> ($1499, February 2002), and now the Simaudio Moon i-5 ($2595). In the process I was fascinated to hear how each amp recommended itself to its targeted price point. Likewise, it was most instructive to hear how they spread their compromises around. With a rough doubling of suggested retail price from the NAD to the Arcam, there was a degree of sonic refinement introduced. However, the leap in improved sound from the Arcam to the Simaudio was more significant. And in quantifying the benefits another $1000 worth of enhancements can confer, I discovered what constitute real high-end bona fides.

It's not every Consumer Electronics Show that someone introduces a $29,000 solid-state phono preamplifier&mdash;and I miss it. The 2002 CES was one. My show report in the April issue made it <I>seem</I> as if I'd found out about it there, but the fact is, someone clued me in after I'd returned home. I needed to come clean on that.

Of the small number of times I have been totally swept away by listening to recorded music, a significant proportion have involved loudspeakers from Wilson Audio Specialties. It was my experience of their X-1/Grand SLAMM in the listening rooms of reviewer Martin Colloms, then-retailer Peter McGrath, designer Dan D'Agostino of Krell, and manufacturer Madrigal Audio Labs, that led me to name it my "Editor's Choice" for 1995 and join my vote with those of the <I>Stereophile</I> scribes to make it the magazine's "Loudspeaker of the Year." I wrote in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/470/">my December 2001 "As We See It"</A> about how a cross-country road trip had begun with a listen to the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//features/465/">Cantus CD</A> on the Wilson WAMMs in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//interviews/478/">their designer's</A> Utah listening room. And, as I wrote in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/557/">my April column</A>, auditioning Peter McGrath's 24-bit <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/461/">Nagra-D</A&gt; master tapes on Wilson MAXXes in the Halcro room was, for me, the highlight of the 2002 CES.

In the last poll, many of you named companies you felt could be depended upon to deliver the goods. How important is a product's brandname when you decide what to purchase?

Roger A. Modjeski's RAM Labs and Music Reference electronics now have a home on the Internet.