Perhaps the most over-the-top pieces of electronics at the RMAF, shown in static form only (if it's being demoed elsewhere at the show we haven't yet found it) are the Naim Statements. As seen here, the amplification system includes two monoblock amps weighing 220 lbs each, plus a preamp, the latter in the center. The amps are rated at 748W into 8 ohms, and 9000W (!) into 1 ohm. The amps are internally bridged, fully balanced designs.

Anyone who thinks the high-end is on its last legs need only have passed the registration table for Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 20 minutes before the show officially opened. The lobby was mobbed, with the line literally going out the front door of the Marriott Denver Tech Center. Nor were these folks just from Colorado. On my first trip up the Tower elevator, I confirmed that my fellow passengers were audiophile visitors—not industry people—from Oregon and New Jersey.

Friday, October 10, 11:30am: the line to enter the 11th Rocky Mountain Audio Fest stretched into the Marriott Denver Tech Center's parking lot.

Friday night, I saw one of the finest, most intimate jazz sets I'd seen in a while: Ethan Iverson and Ron Carter playing duets at Mezzrow, a small new jazz club in Manhattan's West Village...

Among the biggest buzzes at the January 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and at Munich's High End Show the following May, was the sound in the room of Siltech BV, a Dutch company best known for its high-end cables. Siltech was demonstrating an innovative new power amplifier, and using it to drive the company's glass-cabineted Arabesque loudspeakers ($90,000/pair). The sound was unmistakably lush yet also remarkably linear, notably dynamic, and seemingly free of electronic artifacts. It sounded like the sound of "nothing"—which was really something!—and so much of a something that it caught the attention of many reviewers. But while there's often controversy and disagreement about a given product's sound quality, this time the enthusiasm seemed unanimous.