Wednesday, September 19, 6–9pm: Innovative Audio Video (150 East 58th Street, New York) will hold a “Meet the Innovators” event, featuring Dan D’Agostino, who will introduce and demonstrate the new D'Agostino Master Audio Systems Momentum Analog preamplifier. Refreshments will be served. Space is limited. RSVP: (212) 634-4444 or info@iavny.com.

Michael Lavorgna reports on Philip Jeck and Ted Riederer’s performance, last night, at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral, in Brooklyn. Jeck sat at a table, with access to a small keyboard and a few simple turntables. Meanwhile, Riederer played guitar and sang, sending his signals through various effects pedals, looping them and transferring them directly to lathe-cut vinyl. Upon the completion of a side, Riederer would hand the newly created record to an unsuspecting Jeck. In turn, Jeck, with a smile, would place the record upon a turntable and play along. It continued like that for some time.

Like ML, I was captivated by the total experience: the dim lighting, the attentive crowd, the lulling sounds, the rich scents, the soft feel of old floorboards and torn carpeting&#151it all worked to transfix and transport.

I’ll be honest, when Klipsch invited me to see the B-52s on Thursday, August 9th, all I really wanted was for Peter Griffin to stroll across the Irving Plaza stage oblivious to the swirling lights and drifting artificial fog, whip out an acoustic guitar, and play that jangly lead from “Rock Lobster”. A bearded lobster donning a turban would then prance to the front of the stage and everyone would scream “Death to America / And butter sauce!” This never happened. However, I did successfully ignore the opening band Love Funk, had my mind blown by the B-52s, but most importantly, I discovered a bunch of new products from the Klipsch family.

“Iraq Lobstah!”

I'll have more to say about Dan Deacon's America, both here and in the pages of Stereophile, but, for now, I'll just quickly say that I like it&#151a LOT.

Full of major chords and glorious crescendos, littered with screeching electronic noise and dressed up with sweeping violins, America is bold, ambitious, arrogant, pretentious, and really beautiful.

If it's rare to go to an audio show and hear most of a company's products set up properly in multiple rooms, it's rarer still to hear those products also sounding terrific in each and every room. Such was my introduction to Marten's loudspeakers at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. In each of the systems in which the Swedish company's speakers were set up, and no matter what gear was upstream of them, I heard distinctly neutral, open, musical sound. After having the very same experience with Marten's speakers at the 2011 CES, I concluded that they must know what they're doing, and that their speakers are the real deal. I wanted to review some.