I was at least 40' away when I spied my first dCS Lina stack at CanJam. It was black, sitting conspicuously on a table emitting a strong Space Odyssey Monolith vibe. I can't remember which headphones I used, but I do remember how good it felt to face the stack and experience its startling clarity, showing off the bass end of a piano keyboard with a force I could feel in my shoulders. That impactful piano bass plus the stack's matte-finish, neo-Brutalist façade, and feels-like-cashmere volume control, made a strong first impression.

We all know everything sounds like what it looks like—right? It also sounds like what it's made of, who made it, and how much it costs. Well, the $13,500 Lina D/A converter could hardly look more different or feel or cost more different than the $46,500 dCS Vivaldi. The Lina is dCS's lowest priced streaming DAC, so it has to sound less good than my long-term reference Bartók, or the Bartók Apex I reviewed in Gramophone Dreams #75. That's just logical, right?

I've always been a city dweller and can't lay claim to having owned boats, riding mowers, shotguns, basement refrigerators, golf clubs, or even patio furniture. When I moved to a loft from an apartment with a tiny backyard some 13 years ago, I even had to give up my Weber grill. This geographical fact has kept my possessions streamlined. My favorites include a handful of old waxed cotton coats, a couple dozen leather boots and shoes, a few mechanical watches, my Garrard 301 turntable, a roomful of books, and rather a lot of art, much of it made by friends. But without a doubt my fondest possessions are my records. At last count they numbered around 3500. Of course they are beautiful, both as objects and as conduits for music. But what I enjoy even more is the fact that I'm not really their owner, merely a custodian: Most of the records belonged to others before I bought them, and after I'm gone they'll find new owners who'll hopefully appreciate them as much as I do. So I feel I owe it to all of us to keep them in decent condition.

Well Pleased AV’s Mark Sossa corralled me for an early-morning listen session. I'm glad he did.

In the Nirvana C ballroom, Nguyen Phuong of Clarisys Audio USA played his range of Clarisys Audio Panels, of which the smaller Minuet panel had so impressed me at the recent Florida International Audio Expo.

Legacy Audio of Springfield, Illinois featured not one but three systems at AXPONA including three show debuts.

Sinatra said it best: Regrets, I have a few.

On Sunday morning, the final day of the show, my main regret was that I hadn’t made it to the fourth-floor Infigo/Alta room a day or two earlier. If I had, I would have encouraged everyone to go listen.

Affable speaker designer Andrew Jones held court in room 334, explaining the details behind his new SourcePoint 888 floorstanding speakers ($4999/pair), an AXPONA world premiere (review forthcoming). Unfortunately, he couldn’t play his speakers due to the hotel’s intermittent Wi-Fi, which plagued many rooms.