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Loudspeaker lore has it that a "good big'un will always beat a good small'un." But my experience has been that the traditional wisdom is often wrong. Price for price, large speakers often have larger errors compared with minimonitors, the smaller speakers offering more rigid cabinets, better-defined stereo imaging, and, because the owner can experiment with stand height, a better chance of being optimally sited in a room. So while I was as impressed as <I>Stereophile</I> reviewer Kalman Rubinson with what I heard from the floorstanding, $3500/pair Revel Performa F30 (footnote 1) when we visited the Revel facility in California's San Fernando Valley in spring 2000 (footnote 2), it was the big speaker's smaller sibling, the $2000/pair Performa M20, that caught my eye&mdash;and ear.

<B>J.S. BACH: <I>Morimur</I></B><BR> Partita No.2 in d for Solo Violin, BWV 1004; 11 Chorales; <I>Chaconne</I> from BWV 1004 and "Auf meinen lieben Gott" realized by Helga Thoene for solo violin & four voices<BR>Christoph Poppen, baroque violin. The Hilliard Ensemble: Monika Mauch, soprano; David James, countertenor; John Potter, tenor; Gordon Jones, baritone<BR> ECM New Series 1765 (CD). 2001. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Peter Laenger, eng. DDD. TT: 61:42<BR> Performance <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics <B>*****</B>

Checked my e-mail and a message from one Thomas J. Zukowski (tjzhighendaudio@snet.net) caught my eye. I sensed something...friendly. The subject line was "Re: August & September Fine Tunes." A reader, great, and on my birthday no less.

The last day at CES always feels like one of those half-days at school: you may be getting out only a couple of hours early, but everyone starts thinking about going home way before the bell rings. Nonetheless, the die-hard audiophile exhibitors were working up to the last minute and confirmed that show attendance increased steadily right up to the end.

If your audiophile habit goes back more than a couple of decades, you're probably doing a double take looking at the Smart Devices 2X150VT. Looks like a Hafler DH-200, doesn't it? That's because, at its core, a Hafler DH-200 is exactly what it is. Smart Devices doesn't name names in its brochure, but they do say that "You may recognize this amplifier as one of the dominant premium performers of the 1970s and '80s"&mdash;a reasonable enough description of the MOSFET-output DH-200, which combined outstanding sound with a very reasonable price&mdash;especially if you built the kit.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/cdcantus.jpg" WIDTH=170 HEIGHT=152 HSPACE=6 VSPACE=4 BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT><B>Just who were these guys?&mdash;<I>Wes Phillips</I></B>

There's no denying that traffic at the Alexis Park is down from last year. But in spite of this, high-end audio continues to evolve and impress. There were plenty of two-channel audio systems to go around, including vinyl front-ends, while multichannel and video made a modest showing. It's hard enough to get decent sound out of two speakers in a hotel demo room, let alone five or six.