Something strange and awesome was going on in the Zu Audio room. The lights were low, an evil but alluring sound was filling the room, and the company’s Sean Casey was crouched down in a corner, surrounded by vinyl.

Here we see AudioStream’s Michael Lavorgna in serious listening mode. (We can’t seem to keep him away from vinyl.) The album is Edward Ka-Spel’s O Darkness! O Darkness!

1. This show is massive. I think John Atkinson and I are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the number of exhibitors. I’m not sure that we’ll be able to see and hear everything that is on display. A strategy: John will start in the Tower and I will start in the Atrium, and tomorrow, we’ll compare notes and examine what we have and have not achieved. Meanwhile, Michael Lavorgna will cover computer audio for AudioStream, and Tyll Hertsens will cover headphone gear for InnerFidelity.

In 2010, sales of motorcycles equipped with sidecars accounted for only 4% of total motorcycle sales in the US. But that was a significant increase over 2009, which was itself an increase over 2008. While numbers remain low overall, sales of sidecar motorcycles are going up at a decent rate, while sales of most other motorcycles are in the toilet.

Trends in turntable design shift back and forth over time, each "advance" turning out to be a mostly sideways move. Over its long history, VPI's founder and designer, Harry Weisfeld, has moved the analog goalposts back and forth as he's refined his thinking. His early turntables were mostly standard spring-suspension designs of normal size. By the time Weisfeld produced his fully tricked-out TNT model, which was originally designed to stably hold the heavy moving mass of Eminent Technology's ET2 air-bearing arm, he'd moved to a massive, oversized, sandwiched plinth with isolating feet at the corners. He first used springs and, later, air bladders originally designed to cushion a tractor-trailer's load, and which he'd found in a trucker's supply catalog. Via an O-ring, the TNT's outboard motor drove one of three pulleys that protruded from holes in the plinth, and attached to a T-shaped subchassis that, in turn, drove the other two pulleys via two additional O-rings.

In our December issue, I review Emotiva’s ERC-2 CD player and use Mark Hollis’s eponymous solo album as a reference. It’s a gorgeous disc, both sonically and musically&#151full of emotion, power, urgency, and lifelike detail. It was only earlier this year that I discovered Mark Hollis and his band, Talk Talk, through the kindness of Steve Cohen, salesman at In Living Stereo and friend of Other Music.

I had just met Steve.