News

Thursday, April 28, 5–8pm, HiFi Buys (3157 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta) will host its inaugural Guys' Night Out event—an evening of cars, cigars, craft whiskeys, hi-fi presentations, and luxury showcases, with a focus on creating unforgettable, high-quality experiences. Featured hi-fi brands include Audio Research Corporation, Ayre Acoustics, Brinkmann Audio, PrimaLuna, and AudioQuest.

Some of my recent delights have come from recordings by BMOP, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, under the direction of Gil Rose. So I was thrilled to hear that BMOP had recorded their highly praised performance of David Del Tredici's Child Alice, a sprawling romantic work for soprano and orchestra. Please go to www.kickstarter.com/projects/bmopsound/david-del-tredici-child-alice now and we will all be able to enjoy Child Alice. . .

Tomorrow, Saturday April 23, from 4–10pm, JS Audio (4919 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814) is hosting a Wilson/dCS/Dan D'Agostino/Audio Research/Nordost event. Wilson's Peter McGrath will be introducing the new Alexx loudspeaker; Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems President of Sales, Bill Mckiegan, will be showing the iconic company's new amplifiers; John Quick of dCS will be discussing the latest developments in their Vivaldi (2.0), Rossini, and Debussy ranges; Dave Gordon will be present the new Reference 6 and Reference Phono 3 preamplifiers, along with the New Ref 150 SE amplifier; and Michael Taylor from Nordost will be demming the Odin 2 Reference cables and, it is hoped, he will have the New Valhalla 2 USB Cable for attendees to audition.

AudioVisionSF (1628 California Street, San Francisco) and Lavish HiFi (1044 4th Street, Santa Rosa) are holding loudspeaker set-uos today, 7:30–9:30pm (AVSF) and tomorrow, 2–7pm (Lavish) featuring Benno Meldgaard (Chief Designer, pictured above at the 2014 RMAF) and Michael Vamos of GamuT.

The least-expensive Wilson speaker and the most-expensive Vandersteen speaker go head-to head in the May issue, accompanied by reviews of PS Audio's affordable DSD DAC, Schiit's high-value Ragnarok integrated amplifier, Luxman's high-performance EQ-500 phono preamplifier, Vandersteen's unique monoblock amplifier . . .

On Saturday, April 16, beginning at 9:30am, NYC audio retailer In Living Stereo (2 Great Jones Street, New York, NY 10012) is celebrating Record Store Day with a day of in-store performances, shopping for limited-edition RSD releases, and special giveaways.

111 seems to be the magic number for AXPONA 2016, aka Audio Expo of North America. Taking place April 15–17 in the Westin O'Hare in Rosemont, IL (near Chicago's O'Hare airport), AXPONA promises 111 exhibit rooms, including 29 larger meeting spaces which sometimes house multiple systems. AXPONA will also host 111 booths and table displays, with a good 50 of those located in the Ear Gear Expo. All told, the show will feature products from 375 brands, most of which will sing away every day starting at the mercifully civilized hour of 10am.