The all-out AXPONA push by AXISS Audio of Nashville, now headed by Cliff Duffey, encompassed four rooms. The biggest presented three new headliners: Gauder Akustik’s DARC 25-0 Mk II 4-way Reference Loudspeaker ($249,975), Soulution’s 727 preamp with phono module ($89,950; review forthcoming), and Soulution’s 757 deemphasis EQ preamplifier phonostage ($84,975).

Ampsandsound’s Justin Weber brought a big pile of black vinyl to Chicago, lining the small room’s walls with album jackets. He had me at Sphongle, an electronic industrial act that churned out of the world-debut Ampsandsound Hudson 3-Way speakers ($18,000/pair) like dirty psychedelic water erupting from a broken sewer pipe.

With every passing season, a new audiophile-grade network switch hits the market. These products, which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, do the same basic thing as network switches bought at Best Buy for $30 or so (except, in some cases, slower), but their manufacturers claim they are built to a higher standard to achieve better sound.

As with all signal-conditioning devices that operate completely in the digital realm—especially those that work at packet level (more correctly referred to as "frame-level" on the local side of the router, but that's a distinction that even few experts make)—the sonic efficacy of audiophile network switches is debated, the debate being, as usual, mainly between those who insist they hear a difference and those who insist, on theoretical grounds, that no difference is possible.

I was at least 40' away when I spied my first dCS Lina stack at CanJam. It was black, sitting conspicuously on a table emitting a strong Space Odyssey Monolith vibe. I can't remember which headphones I used, but I do remember how good it felt to face the stack and experience its startling clarity, showing off the bass end of a piano keyboard with a force I could feel in my shoulders. That impactful piano bass plus the stack's matte-finish, neo-Brutalist façade, and feels-like-cashmere volume control, made a strong first impression.

We all know everything sounds like what it looks like—right? It also sounds like what it's made of, who made it, and how much it costs. Well, the $13,500 Lina D/A converter could hardly look more different or feel or cost more different than the $46,500 dCS Vivaldi. The Lina is dCS's lowest priced streaming DAC, so it has to sound less good than my long-term reference Bartók, or the Bartók Apex I reviewed in Gramophone Dreams #75. That's just logical, right?

I've always been a city dweller and can't lay claim to having owned boats, riding mowers, shotguns, basement refrigerators, golf clubs, or even patio furniture. When I moved to a loft from an apartment with a tiny backyard some 13 years ago, I even had to give up my Weber grill. This geographical fact has kept my possessions streamlined. My favorites include a handful of old waxed cotton coats, a couple dozen leather boots and shoes, a few mechanical watches, my Garrard 301 turntable, a roomful of books, and rather a lot of art, much of it made by friends. But without a doubt my fondest possessions are my records. At last count they numbered around 3500. Of course they are beautiful, both as objects and as conduits for music. But what I enjoy even more is the fact that I'm not really their owner, merely a custodian: Most of the records belonged to others before I bought them, and after I'm gone they'll find new owners who'll hopefully appreciate them as much as I do. So I feel I owe it to all of us to keep them in decent condition.