The year: 1999. The city: Minneapolis. While taking a break from partying with Prince like it was, well . . . that year, I wandered into a local audio emporium to see what new and exciting goodies were on display. Set up in a large listening room, attached to the latest Mark Levinson gear, were Revel's original Ultima Studio loudspeakers. I sat down, gave them a listen, and heard the best sound I had yet heard. For the first time, it seemed to me that I was listening to an audio system that played with low distortion and little coloration. Also, the system's wide dispersion threw a huge soundstage, engrossing me in the music in ways other speakers couldn't. I was hooked.

In the summer of 1999, Sony held a press event in New York City to mark the introduction of the Super Audio Compact Disc, then the sole domestic embodiment of the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology, jointly developed by Sony and Philips. The new format was hailed, in prepared remarks, by an impressive list of audio and music dignitaries: Nobuyuki Idei, then president of Sony Corporation; Steven Epstein, senior executive producer for Sony Classical; Yo-Yo Ma, appearing in a video created for the event; and Wynton Marsalis, appearing in person. All of the speeches—every single one of them—flattered SACD by likening its sound to that of the analog LP.