Constantine and Ann Soo deserve a huge thank you from the audiophile community. Responding to pleas from insistent dealers and distributors, who lamented the absence of an audiophile show from the San Francisco Bay Area, Constantine and dagogo.com took a huge risk.

In his second, equally well-appointed room at the CA Audio Show, Elite Audio's Michael Woods was telling a visitor "People think that Meridian equipment is only for showing movies. But it's excellent for audio as well."

Given that the <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2010/finishing_with_evolution_and_dartze… Acoustics-Playback Designs room</A> at T.H.E. Show 2010 blew both me and John Atkinson away, and earned my "Best of CES 2010," I was extremely eager to take another listen.

Rarely do I have time to visit a room twice, let alone space to post multiple blogs on a single exhibit. But because deHavilland/KE Engineering's Kara Chafee first showing of her KE Engineering/deHavilland Model 222 Magnetic Tape Playback Preamplifier ($1,995) was severely handicapped by the lack of her deHavilland KE 50A monoblock power amplifiers ($9995/pair), which had been <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/dehavillandke_small_is_supreme/">de… in shipment</A>, I made sure to return when I learned that the amps had finally arrived.

At the other end of the room from the JBL Everest DD-66000 I <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/jbl_at_the_summit/">wrote about on the first day</A>, Design Interaction was switching between the JBL 1400 Array ($11,000/pair) and Revel Ultima2 Salon loudspeakers ($22,000/pair), both speakers very well-reviewed in <I>Stereophile</I>. Heard through a dark-charactered Mark Levinson No.532 amp ($20,000), No.512 SACD player ($15,000), and No.526A preamp ($10,000), hooked up by MIT Oracle cables ($3500, with allocation not specified), the much f&#234;ted Revels smoked the less expensive JBLs, I thought.