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“Oh, man,” I heard someone say. “You’ve got the XX on vinyl?!”

Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis turned, smiled, and nodded to the small group of young attendees.

“You’re killing me!”

Dynaudio’s Mike Mannousselis always brings a ton of awesome music to hi-fi shows, and this time he played a track called “Suzanne” by Asobi Seksu, a band I once booked to play at Uncle Joe’s, a small but dearly loved dive bar in downtown Jersey City.

Despite their size, the Dynaudio Confidence C2 Signature loudspeakers ($15,000/pair) managed to disappear, leaving a clear view onto the music.

The sound of the Harbeth Compact 7 speakers, driven by an LFD integrated amplifier via TellurideQ cables was as musically communicative as I was expecting. But then I saw the triangular Stein Magic Diamond sitting on top of the speaker cabinet and knew I was in the presence of serious audio strangeness. Sam Tellig wrote about the Stein devices in his September 2011 issue column: "The Harmonizers, Magic Stones, and Magic Diamonds helped make the room boundaries disappear and the venue of each recording matter more. It was as if sound flowed more freely through the air."

Ulp!

But the sound in this room did have some special magic to it.

One of Colorado dealer Listen-Up's rooms at RMAF featured Musical Fidelity gear, including the M1 CLiC network player ($1999) that Jon Iverson will soon be reviewing for Stereophile. But what caught my attention in this room was the cute Penaudio Cenya speaker ($3995/pair), a two-way stand-mount that uses premium SEAS drive-units. We have been impressed by Penaudio speakers in the past, so it was good to hear that Tempo Distribution will now be importing these Scandinavian speakers, which use a unique cabinet construction combining MDF and plywood, in the US. The sound of John Lee Hooker dueting with Van Morison was surprisingly full-bodied considering the diminutive size of the speakers.

DeVore Fidelity’s John DeVore was as proud of his t-shirt as he was his new Gibbon 88 loudspeaker.

I hope this doesn’t gross you out or make you cancel your subscription or anything, but SEXY (in all caps) is the first word that came to my mind when I walked into the room hosted by Tone Imports, DeVore Fidelity, Well Tempered Labs, and the Box Furniture Co.

There was a lot of pretty stuff to look at and listen to in here.