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Last summer, Music@Menlo devoted its season to a series of Creative Capitals programs. Through concerts, lectures, and more, the festival surveyed the diversity of Western chamber music that was birthed in Europe's "most flourishing" historic creative capitals—London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna.

You can hear the sum of Music@Menlo's accomplishments in the multi-CD sets of the their annual festivals, most of which are also available for streaming in Red-Book quality on Tidal...

Many rooms, such as Vanatoo's, where I snapped the above photo, had SRO crowds. Nor were those crowds limited to exhibits with low-priced products. MBL/UHA, Wilson/Audio Research, and MartinLogan/Parasound, to name but three higher-priced rooms that carried well-known brands, were mobbed. In addition, almost every attendee was respectful during demos, and refrained from the tendency to carry on private conversations. I only heard two cell phones go off in rooms, and no one blinded me by texting on a bright screen and then giving me attitude when I politely asked if they could turn it down. The respectfulness also applied to the exhibitors I encountered, who are sometimes so fried by Day Three that they ignore half the people who walk into their room.

As I began Day Three of the FAE, I was surprised to discover that I only had four rooms plus the sole hallway exhibit left to cover. With the realization that I could actually spend some time in the sun before flying home during the Pacific Northwest's most paralyzing Snowmaggedon episode in many a decade, I allowed myself to take more time in each room.

Only a few months after the extraordinary news and release of John Coltrane's Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album on Impulse! Records, which revealed the tenor and soprano saxophonist deep in transitional mode, comes Universal Music/Verve's attempt to cash in on the Trane fever. Joining music from The Lost Album with selections from other albums recorded by Coltrane in that year, 1963: New Directions brings Coltrane's legacy to our commercially crass, modern marketplace.

Qobuz, the French subscription hi-rez streaming and download service, finally launches in the US today, right before the start of CanJam NYC. Qobuz not only offers more than 40 million tracks, over two million of which are said to be hi-rez, but also includes liner notes for many albums. The service has also secured partnerships that enable it to position Qobuz as the "official" streaming service of CanJam and other US high-end audio shows.

It's always nice to encounter fine old friends in new contexts. In this case, it was an all-but-the-speakers system from Germany's AVM, whose MA8.2 monoblocks ($31,990/pair) were the first amplifiers I reviewed for Stereophile. AVM's PA8.2 modular preamp ($18,785) with phono, DAC, tone input card, and tubed output card is no stranger to Stereophile either—it was reviewed by Michael Fremer in our December 2018 issue.

Without question, the 5th-floor room headlined by Joseph Audio Pulsar stand-mounted speakers ($7700/pair) and Doshi Audio's stereo amplifier ($19,995), line-level preamplifier ($17,995) and tape preamplifier ($17,995), connected by Cardas Clear and Clear Beyond cabling, earned its place on many an expo-goer's "Best Rooms of Show" list. Aided by an Aqua La Voce S3 DAC ($4750) and Innuos Zen Mk.3 server ($2600), the system stood out for the beauty of its midrange. I know I've mentioned the midrange a lot in these show reports, but you really needed to hear the glowing warmth of this one.