LATEST ADDITIONS

Let me hear your body talk.
—Olivia Newton John

But first a confession: I'm not the hip young man you might like me to be (or the one I might like me to be). I'm actually sort of old-fashioned. While my taste in music is nearly as uninhibited and adventurous as that of anyone I know, I prefer to enjoy that music in ways far more restrained and much less modern. I think I would have been right at home in the 1950s, wearing Ray-Bans and Levi's, listening to (and loving, equally and deeply) the music of both Jack Scott and John Cage, and playing my records on a record player.

I heard from Kelli recently. She said something about moving all of her music into the clouds.

"Huh?"

"Cloud music," she said.

Music Hall’s new plug-and-play dac15.2 ($299) has USB, coaxial, and optical inputs and is capable of handling resolutions up to 24-bit/96kHz.

“It’s just fucking amazing,” Roy Hall said simply.

Available this fall.

I swear: Music Hall’s Roy Hall was cracking jokes and smiling wide just moments before I snapped this shot.

“Are you enjoying the show?” he had asked.

“Very much. This show has a certain grace and a natural sex appeal that shows in the States seem to lack,” I said.

Roy nodded. “Ah, you get it. So you’re not just a pretty face.”

Then he walked me over to his new MMF-11 turntable (around $4500, including Pro-Ject 10cc carbon-fiber tonearm). First seen in prototype form at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, the 43-lb MMF-11 is a two-motor, flywheel-driven turntable with a thick, acrylic platter, a four-layer plinth, and magnetic feet to further isolate the turntable from vibrations.

“No original ideas here,” Roy quipped.

Shut Up and Dance, on the French label Bee Jazz, should catapult John Hollenbeck into the pantheon of living big-band composers, along with Maria Schneider, Bob Brookmeyer, Jim McNeely, and (if his debut works are matched by what's to come) Darcy James Argue, among perhaps a very few others. I've praised some of Hollenbeck's earlier albums in this space, especially his Large Ensemble's Eternal Interludes and his Claudia Quintet's Royal Toast, but I have to say I admired them more than I liked them. His arrangements were . . .

Andy Regan (left) and George Cardas are excited about the current state of hi-fi and music. They strongly believe that the asynchronous technologies found in today’s digital-to-analog converters can erase any negative effects the Compact Disc has had on music and on our enjoyment of music. It’s possible to achieve improved sound quality and enjoy a better overall listening experience by removing the disc from the equation, playing high-quality music files stored on a hard drive.

These two kitty-clad women have been following me all over the show. They’re here to promote Cambridge Audio’s new Minx series of mini-speakers, made to match a small, stylish design with true high-quality sound.

Genius.

“You two are so hot, you should be illegal,” I told them.

They laughed.

“What did you just say to them?” Rosemarie asked.

“I told them they were so hot they should be illegal.”

“God, you’re such a guy.”

“Danke!”

The controls on these sleek Audiolab 8200 Series components were pure pleasure; I could have played with them all day long. The 8200CD CD player uses the Sabre 32-bit DAC from ESS Technology&#151hot. The 8200Q preamp’s six line-level inputs respond to remote control, but you’ll want to caress this thing; the volume knob is a motorized potentiometer for precise tracking, while a separate gain control enables sensitivity to be matched to different power amps and source components. Finally, the clean, simple 8200P power amp provides 100Wpc into 8 ohms.