Takács Assad Labro: Pieces for bandoneón, string quartet, piano, and voice; Smetana: Má vlast; Tchaikovsky, Korngold: Souvenir de Florence, String Sextet.

John Leventhal: Rumble Strip; Umbrellas: Fairweather Friend; The Who: Live At Shea Stadium, 1982; UFO: Lights Out; Tom Rush: Gardens Old, Flowers New.

What a nice little system. The LP version of Paul Simon’s “Something So Right” sounded exactly that on TSO’s system, with an exceptionally smooth midrange and lovely bloom to the sound.

What a perfect way to say goodbye AXPONA 2024. In a simple system consisting of Zellaton Emotion Evo speakers ($44,750/pair), LTA Ultralinear amplification ($7000), and a Grimm Audio MU2 ($17,500) serving as preamp and streaming DAC with a Roon core and analog volume control, we began with a 16/44.1 mastering of Janis Ian’s “Guess You Had to Be There.” Given my age, I expect I was.

JBL's AXPONA presentation began with a nod to the iconic "Blown Away Guy" tape ad for Maxell featuring the original JBL L100 speakers.

In 2022, Tom Waits decided it was time to remaster the albums he made during his stint at Island Records. The Waits classics Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), Franks Wild Years (1987), Bone Machine (1992), and the Waits (with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs) musical fable The Black Rider (1993) are the first new remasters to be released.

Remastered from the original tapes (except one, for which a digital source was used), all five are available on LP and CD as well as streaming and download.

When everything arrives intact and Jeffrey Catalano has the time to create a set-up as stunning visually as it was aurally, High Water Sound’s systems invariably earn accolades as a Best of Show. This one certainly won my vote, as well as my applause and heart.

The popular history of quadraphonics (4-channel sound from LP records, tapes, and radio broadcasts) chronicles a spectacular failure. The major record labels, led by CBS/Columbia and JVC/RCA, invested millions in ill-fated schemes to convince music lovers to ditch 2-channel stereo for 4-channel surround sound. The concept was killed, so the story goes, by competing and incompatible LP formats, high prices on the better-sounding discrete-channel reel tapes, and a collective shrug by the buying public.

That story is mostly true, though the format thrived for a while in Japan and Germany, and it never fully died. Now, modern tech has made possible rereleases of 1970s quad albums on relatively common formats: multichannel SACD and Blu-ray discs (BD). No more "meh" LP formats, no more fussy 1970s-tech decoders.