Enticing more music lovers to try vinyl requires a foolproof, plug'n'play solution. Asking a member of the digital generation to install a cartridge in a tonearm and then set up the VTA, SRA, VTF, etc. is asking too much. It's easier to make such a request of someone already bitten by the analog bug, but with turntables, wishing someone beginner's luck will not guarantee success.

Natalie was either impressed by my impeccable taste in music or high on Brussels sprouts: At some point during the meatloaf dinner at my place (see last month's column), with a smile so wicked and dazzling it could knock a stylus from a groove, she asked if I would be the DJ at her next house party.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've loved everything you've played tonight."

Delighted, I tried not to show it. I turned from Natalie's brilliant smile to stare at the hi-fi, as if the hi-fi would be the guiding light for my next few moves. I was worried, of course, because worrying is what I do. I hadn't DJ'd since college, and while I'd been looking for a reason to set up a turntable and speakers at Natalie and Nicole's apartment, I hadn't exactly expected this turn of events.

"You want me to play LPs?"

The New York Axpona Show came together on very short notice. It was announced to the industry and press on the penultimate day of the Atlanta Axpona, which took place in mid-April. As I understand it, the Show's genesis was the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) thinking that it would be a good idea to add high-end audio consumer days to their annual CEWeek in New York. This is a "line show," where big electronic companies show their fall product line-ups to the press. Accordingly, CEA partnered with Axpona's Steve Davis to organize the high-end show, with marketing support being given by Stereophile and Home Theater magazines.

Two months is not much time to organize a large show and possible exhibitors would already have their promotional budgets fixed. So it was no surprise that there was only a limited number of exhibitors at the Show: 22 rooms (not including software vendors) representing 72 individual brands on three of the hotel's floors, plus a mezzanine.

The show took place at the Affinia Hotel. . .

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

I've been listening to a lot of mid-priced, sealed headphones lately, and these just keep jumping out at me. They say DJ on the side and have a mono switch, but I'm not buying it ... these are just plain good headphones.

Pioneer, eh? Who'da thunk it.

Best sound apart from violinist Arturo Delmoni, that is. I am reviewing TAD's Compact Reference CR-1 three-way stand-mounts ($37,500/pair plus $1800/pair for stands) for a Fall issue of the magazine so I was interested in seeing what kind of sound TAD's chief engineer Andrew Jones was getting from the CR-1s in the room TAD was sharing with its New York dealer, Triode Picture+Sound. Though there were a pair of Atma-Sphere tube monoblocks in the room, the speakers were being driven by TAD's solid-state amplifier with the source Andrew's MacBook Air running Decibel and feeding data to a TAD DAC via USB. I listened to several hi-rez recordings at 176.4kHz and 192kHz from Chesky and ex-Sheffield Labs engineer Bill Schnee, whose recording for Bravura Records of a band led by drummer Simon Phillips had one of the best recorded drum sounds I have heard. Even in the cramped and crowded hotel room, it was obvious that these speakers, with their coaxial, beryllium-diaphragm midrange/tweeter and reflex-loaded 8" woofer with a 4" voice-coil, were doing something out of the ordinary with respect to freedom from compression.

It was déjà vu all over again when I went into the MBL room at Axpona (after a wait in the corridor outside, this room being packed throughout the Show). The system was the same used at SSI in Montreal and Axpona in Atlanta last April—101E Mk.2 omnidirectional speakers driven by gigantic 9011 monoblock amplifiers, a 6010D preamp, a 1621A CD transport, and a 1611F D/A converter—but this time with everything finished in a superb gloss white. I listened to "Fit Song" from Cornelius's Sensuous CD, "The Boy in the Bubble" from Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back CD, and the hi-rez solo piano recording made by MBL's long-time chief engineer Jürgen Reis, "Walchensee, Mondnacht," performed by Martin Vatter, from the album Klangbilder. All the music was being played from a Linux music server put together by MBL's Jeremy Bryan and fed via an asynchronous USB link to the MBL DAC.

The room was a little on the small side for the speakers, with their extended LF response and omnidirectional highs, but that aside, the sound rocked, with an enormous and well-defined soundstage drawing me into the music.