Tubes?

In a CD player?

Century-old technology embedded in a modern digital design?

I realize that Aesthetix's Saturn Romulus is not the first disc player or D/A processor with tubes, nor will it be the last—but does combining these technologies even make sense? Are audiophiles working at cross purposes to themselves, looking for modern perfection but preferring a little old-school sweetening here and there?

David Thornberry of Pearland, Texas is the very lucky winner of our VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine from Soundstage Direct Sweepstakes, but he almost didn't get his prize. Once the package hit Mesquite, Texas, it went missing.

Everyone's favorite audio show is about to get underway. The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest returns to the Denver Marriott Tech Center on October 11–13.

RMAF may not be the biggest consumer audio show in North America—that honor recently passed to T.H.E. Show Newport Beach—but even without a cigar show, car show, wine show, and airport right across the street, RMAF's 440 brands spread over 138 hotel rooms, 25 big rooms (and three more at the Hyatt across the street), a CANJAM headphone ballroom hosting a record 37 exhibitors, 14 software vendors (CDs, LPs, etc.), and 26 lobby exhibits is definitely something to get excited about.

In what may be a record period for audio show acquisitions. Connecticut-based trade show company JD Events has acquired AXPONA (Audio Expo North America). The announcement follows on the heels of UK-based The Chester Group's announcement that it has bought Montreal's Salon Son et Image, and gotten out of the way of AXPONA Chicago by moving its New York Show to a fall date in Brooklyn.

In its own words, JD Events "is dedicated to the creation of targeted and innovative industry-leading events that deliver results. The company brings together highly qualified buying audiences, education-rich content and high-level networking opportunities—all geared toward increasing business transactions in the markets it serves."

This collaboration, an inspired pairing of Costello and ?uestlove, a pair of deep tracks music historians, seemed promising in the extreme. The resulting Wise Up Ghost is just that. Extremely promising, yet not entirely memorable.

Last night, AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna and I attended Jenny Hval's performance at the Mercury Lounge on Houston Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Because we first made stops to: browse LPs and chat with Daniel at Other Music, enjoy cask-conditioned ales at dba, and devour some incredibly delicious pies at Rizzo's, we were primed for a memorable evening of music.

Jenny Hval did not disappoint.

The world is catching up with Darcy James Argue. Two years ago, he was known mainly for having the strangest name in jazz since Ornette Coleman. Now he's a double winner in Downbeat's 2013 Critics' Poll—the top pick for Best Arranger, and tied with Maria Schneider for Best Big Band Leader.

Whether the subject is hi-fi equipment, films, restaurants, power tools, or condoms (see the April 2005 "Listening"), reviewing should be off-limits to the perennially unhappy. I'm reminded of that dictum by the flap over the recent film Identity Thief, which was savaged by reviewer Rex Reed—not because the film is weak, but because its star, Melissa McCarthy, is heavy. Reed, whose career as the Paul Lynde of film reviewing was punctuated by a starring role in a flop called Myra Breckenridge, mentioned in his review McCarthy's size not once but numerous times, thus exposing himself as a bullying hack who wields his harshest criticisms not when they are merited but as unconscious expressions of his own personal anguish. Hate speech of any sort is the crayon of the unhappy; that is doubly true of people who write for a living.