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Headed by the irrepressible Angie Lisi, Audio Pathways is the importer for some ultra-high-end gear as well as affordably-priced audio products, and usually has some new interesting goodies at every show. At $47,000, the new VAC Statement 250 stereo amp is right up there, but if the 225Wpc is not enough for you, it can be bridged to produce 450W. The Statement 250 is a two-piece affair, and is meant to be stacked, with the power supply on the bottom, isolated from the top piece with bearings (which reminds me of the Aurios accessory bearings that were very good but unfortunately are no longer available).

As you can see in the picture, Angie loves Jeff Rowland Design Group products, such as the Aeris DAC/preamp ($12,000), which made its debut at SSI 2012. The Aeris features a substantial external power supply, and has the usual array of inputs, including the now-mandatory USB.

Grant Fidelity's sign says "No Retail Mark-Up, Free Shipping, 1st Class Service," and "High End, Not High Prices." The products, as you might have guessed, are made in China, but what else is new? At previous shows, most of their products had the Grant Fidelity brand name; this time, it was Opera Audio Consonance. The pictured Consonance LP12.1 Die Walküre turntable can accommodate three tonearms, and, with a single W/T1288 tonearm, sells for $3200. That's not super-cheap—which actually gives me more confidence in the quality of the product. I was told that the turntable and arm are made in the same factory that manufactures the latest version of the Well Tempered turntable/tonearm.

Another interesting product featured in the Canada Pavilion was the exaSound e18DAC ($1999). It is, as the name implies, a DAC, but it's much more than that. Featuring a maximum 384kHz/32-bit sample rate and bit depth, it can function in stereo and 8-channel modes, and has a formidable list of technical specifications, including a 0.13ps master clock with 3 precision quartz oscillators, 17 power filtering stages, galvanic isolation between the USB subsystem and the DAC circuits, true asynchronous USB interface, hardware volume control implemented by the DAC chip for the highest S/N ratio, and has a high-quality headphone amplifier.

This Devialet D-Premier D/A integrated amplifier seemed to be flashing its own price: $16.5k, for which the lucky owner gets 240Wpc, sleek styling, and a great deal of up-to-date technology, including 192/24 WiFi capability. I had hoped to learn more about the D-Premier (and the impressive Focal loudspeakers it was driving), but the pleasant young fellow who was running the booth couldn't make himself understood over the very loud playback levels—and the latter finally drove me from the room. John Atkinson will be reviewing the Devialet D-Premier, which he says combines a highly linear class-A amplifier with a class-D output stage in a topology somewhat similar to the late Peter Walker's "current dumping" circuit, in a summer issue of Stereophile.

A tonic for the homesick: I entered the Audio Note room and saw, in the far corners, a pair of their reliable AN-E Spe/HE loudspeakers ($9000/pair): the very speakers I own and love. (This pair was veneered in a strikingly grained raw rosewood, while mine are done up in glossy yew.) There, too, was the brand new Audio Note CD 4.1x CD player ($12,000), my review sample of which arrived at my home on the very day I left for Montreal (this according to my wife). The sound in this room was so extraordinarily good—with especially fine bass reach and drama—that I feel compelled to tweak, slightly, the positions of my own AN-Es when I get home.

Tim Ryan of SimpliFi Audio demonstrated the always-enjoyable Gradient Helsinki loudspeaker ($6000/pair) in tandem with Gradient's SWS dipole bass speakers (also $6000/pair, outboard crossover included), to excellent effect. Ryan says the SWS, to whose development the late Peter Walker contributed, also works a treat with the Harbeth P3 and other smallish speakers from that line. (That's exactly how he said it, too.)