It might be nice if the receiver can connect to a modern TV, which will have either TosLink or HDMI-ARC output, or both. For those of us who still own a bunch of CDs, we might as well include a robust DAC—and maybe even a built-in CD transport. Throw in FM analog and digital tuners, and voilà, you have the R 2500 R, the "21st Century Receiver" from T+A Elektroakustik of Herford, Germany, southwest of Hanover.

It's time to go out on a limb. Are Danny Elfman's Percussion Concerto and the other works on his new album "great music"? Should this classical music, from the former lead singer and songwriter of new wave band Oingo Boingo—who composed film scores for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Spider-Man, and whose music introduces Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons—be in the same conversation with Albéniz, Scriabin, Ligeti, Glass, Gluck, Brahms, and Beethoven, whose work appears on our other Recording of the Month candidate, Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital?

When the CD is gone, and it will be soon, we'll miss it. New CD releases are winding down (footnote 1). In the classical world, the era of big, bargain-priced boxes of CDs—a somewhat recent development—is ending because, after a long, slow descent, retail sales have fallen off a cliff in the past year or so. In pop and rock, if you discover a new band you like, you may or may not be able to buy a CD. Perhaps they'll self-publish a few to sell at concerts; there's a better chance they'll have LPs, assuming they can get time at a vinyl-mastering studio and a pressing plant, both of which are booked to the max. CDs, though, are an afterthought if they're even that.

Vinyl records will likely stay around indefinitely as a collector's artifact, but new CDs are fading fast. This is momentous. CD will be remembered as the last mainstream physical music format. Its passing marks the death of physical music media.

VTL and Wilson have delivered great sound at previous shows, and they did so again here in a set-up of which Peter McGrath, Brand Ambassador for Wilson Audio, was especially proud: VTL’s MB-450 III Signature monoblocks, TL7.5 III Reference preamplifier, and TP6.5 II.