"Future generations will be able to condense into the brief space of twenty minutes the tone pictures of a lifetime—five minutes of childish prattle, five moments embalming the last feeble utterances from the death-bed. Will this not seem like holding veritable communion with immortality?"—Berliner Gramophone Company ca 1877

Jonathan Weiss doesn't do things the ordinary way. Nor does he follow the usual audio industry processes.

In 2006, Weiss founded Oswalds Mill Audio (OMA), manufacturer of a range of high-end loudspeakers and other products with exotic, vintage-inspired approaches and designs. Serious handcraft and bespoke materials, from solid hardwood enclosures to leather from luxury makers Hermès and Jean Rousseau, are behind OMA's upper-echelon pricing.

On the cold and sunny morning of February 19, 2020, a dozen or so audio critics and writers gathered at Gilmore's Sound Advice on New York's far West Side to see some new NAD and DALI products that had been unveiled the prior month at CES. It was a friendly group, and we kibitzed over coffee before clustering in the arranged seats for presentations and auditions. I doubt any of us realized that it would be the last time for the foreseeable future that we would experience this familiar rite.