When I last met Charles Holt in 1991, he was a teenager. But I had no problem recognizing him at RMAF&#151;he looks just like his Dad. And, as you can see in Jason Serinus' photograph, in which Charles is flanked by his girlfriend Melissa and me, Charles is wearing the infamous "<A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_finger_button/">finger button</A>," which was Gordon's favorite image of himself.

Tube amp designer Roger Modjeski (Music Reference) toasts Gordon Holt with a Martini.

Bea Lam's Martini party in honor of J. Gordon Holt&#151;that's Bea at the right of the photo&#151; concluded with a solo violin recital to remind partygoers what high-end audio is all about.

Restocking the magazines on the <I>Stereophile</I> booth, I saw a familiar face on the booth next door. Audio industry veteran Jim Smith was selling (and autographing) copies of his book <I>Get Better Sound</I>, which is, as the name suggests, about how to get better sound from your system.

Since the demise of of its own Show, <I>Stereophile</I> has been supporting North American audio Shows, which was why you can find us at RMAF in Denver and <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/">SSI in Montreal</A>. Next March, we are partnering with the Axpona Show in Florida, which had a booth at RMAF. The booth was manned, er, personed by two beautiful girls but, of course, when I went back with my camera, they had left for the day.

As expected, Bel Canto Design's complement of components fully lived up to their reputation for affordable excellence. The top-of-the-line e.One CD2 CD transport/player ($2995), prototype DAC 3.5 (price not yet set), two REF500M Balanced mono amplifiers ($1995/each), REF VBS1 Virtual Battery Supply, which can power up to three front-end products ($1495), USB Link 24/96 USB to /SPDIF link ($495), and new USB Lightlink High Speed Optical ST glass-fiber link (price not supplied) were fed by an Airport Express-equipped computer server. As Bel Canto President Michael McCormick explained, "The DAC 3.5's excellent jitter rejection is at the center of the system." A Running Springs Power Conditioner completed the chain… except for one major component, the speakers.

"This wasn't our choice of music," whispered German Physiks' Robert Kelly when I entered the room they were sharing with Danish electronics manufacturer Vitus Audio. "No problem," I whispered back, " I love Howard Shore's symphonic score to the movie trilogy <I>Lord of the Rings</I>," which a visitor had asked to be played.

Listening to a Toni Braxton cut on the LSA1 Statement speakers ($2599/pair), driven by an Exemplar-modded Denon 2910 DVD player and LSA's hybrid integrated amplifier (reviewed by <I>Stereophile</I> when it was called the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/606dk/">DK Designs VS.1 Reference Mk.III</A>), I was struck by how much low-frequency information was coming from this nicely finished two-way stand-mount.

My attention was caught by the USB flash drive sticking out of the side of the Aura Premier CD player/receiver/headphone amplifier ($2595) in one of the April Music/May Audio rooms. And so it should have caught my attention, because it was styled by noted English industrial designer Kenneth Grange, responsible for some of ther classic B&W designs on the 1970s and '80s. The Premier will play MP3, WMA, and Ogg Vorbbis files from its USB-B input and it also has a USB-A port that will accept data sampled at up to 48kHz with 16-bit resolution.

John Atkinson was one busy camper at RMAF. In addition to blogging the show and moderating Saturday afternoon's information-packed, standing room only Computer Audio Panel, John presented four hour-long seminars entitled PC Audio—Squeezing the Music Till the Bits Squeak, playing all his music examples from his MacBook laptop via a Metric Halo FireWire interface. The setting was Evergreen E, the large, excellent-sounding exhibit (Sony and JBL speakers, Mark Levinson amplification, EMM Labs preamp and digital source components, Kimber kables) assembled by Ray Kimber of Kimber Kable.