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If ever one needed an object lesson on how to put on a successful demo, the team at AudioVision San Francisco provided. At an evening entitled "A Sonos Wireless Event," held on the evening of February 7, at least three demonstrations were held simultaneously: the first in the store's main "High-End System" room, which in itself involved two different systems; a second in the store's smaller demo room, again including a switch of Triangle loudspeakers, Bel Canto Design electronics, and Nordost cabling; and at least one more in the hallway. Representatives from Sonos Wireless Audio, Bel Canto Design and Nordost conducted the demos with an able assist from AudioVision staff.

I certainly am no stranger to the idea that a "student" orchestra can turn in a performance undeniably superior to those offered by many "professional" orchestras. After all, my favorite commercial recording of Mahler's Symphony 6 is by the orchestra of The Manhattan School of Music, conducted by Glenn Cortese.

But what a special treat it was to hear Daniel Barenboim conduct the orchestra he founded with Edward Said in Weimar in 1999, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in a program of Beethoven's Second and Third ("Eroica") Symphonies at Providence's Veterans Memorial Auditorium on January 26. The concert was presented by the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University. The communication between the conductor and the orchestra members, who obviously revere him, was a wonder to behold. Further, when the carefully-nurtured dynamics finally opened all the way up, the near-stunning sound was a rapturous feast of tactile tonal richness.

My advice: If you live in Big Apple-Land, do whatever it takes to hear Maestro Barenboim leading his young charges in all the Beethoven Symphonies at Carnegie Hall, January 30 to February 3.

Saturday, February 23, 1–6pm: The Capital Audiofest and DCAudioDIY will hold a listening party at Capital Audiofest founder Gary Gill’s home, in Fells Point, Baltimore.

Just in time for the New Year, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records has released the first-ever DSD (Direct-Stream-Digital) download of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's recording of Mahler's Symphony No.1. Recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall in September 2001, shortly after 9/11, and first released as a hybrid SACD in 2003, the recording is one of the only four Mahler symphonies in SFSO's complete Mahler cycle that were recorded directly to DSD.

The Mahler 1 files, available in four formats, are all derived directly from San Francisco Symphony's master, not from a copy of the SACD. The formats include two DSD formats: DFF and DSF. For those whose computer playback software or DACs are not equipped to play DSD files, 24/96 and 16/44.1 PCM files in WAV format are also available.

We received the following press release last night. No more information was available and there was no word when this story was first posted on whether or not Thiel cofounder Kathy Gornik will remain with the company. Since then, however, CEPro.com has reported that Kathy and her daughter Dawn Cloyd, who was director of international sales, will both leave Thiel. Why the sale? Our suspicion is that while Thiel remains a great brand, it is too small a company, with no access to a significant source of capital, to be able to compete effectively in today's market.

Rather than debut its new $13,000 DSX1000 Network Music Player in the UK, where the company is based, Chord founder and chief scientist, John Franks (above), traveled to Mountain View, CA on November 8 for the unveiling. The site was the spacious, extremely attractive Northern California showroom of Audio High, one of the high-end dealers in the US that display Chord's top-end Reference products.

It was no accident that residential architect Mark Cronander, aka Variac, scheduled the Sixth Burning Amp DIY Fest for October 28, on the same weekend that the AES Convention (Audio Engineering Society) took place in San Francisco. Not only did Cronander attract a fair number of new folks who came into town for the convention, but he also scored, as a speaker, class-D amplification expert Bruno Putzeys of Belgium's Hypex Electronics.