Like at the last Toronto Audiofest, I listened to two of EQ Audio's main systems that were setup at both ends mirror-image-like along the length of the back wall of their huge, subdivided exhibit space. One system included another North American premiere!—the Monitor Audio 3-way PL200 3G speakers ($17,500/pair)—the second system consisted of a pair of Focal Sopra No.3 speakers ($33,798/pair) and electronics by Musical Fidelity.

And now for something completely different, Part 3.

Ever heard of a monophonic integrated amplifier? An amp that includes a single amplification channel along with its single channel preamplification stage? I hadn't until I visited manufacturer Eon Art's room, which was demoing a pair of such a rare, in fact, one-of-a-kind, beast, called the Boson ($72,537/each).

A room I can always count on to deliver soul-stirring, heart-warming, duct-tearing, yearning-to-possess sound is the one hosted by Hearken Audio/Atelier Audio, an oasis of some of the least mechanical, most musical sound I've heard this side of real-life music.

The first audiophile I met lived near a sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of Moscow. It was a few months after the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1992, when I was a college senior, and I recall walking with my father to his home past block after block of the identical dingy white tenements that encircle most Eastern European cities.

And now for something completely different, Part 2

On the gentle urging of one of the nicest guys in the biz, Ed O'Herlihy, owner of Ontario retailer EQ audio video, I visited, among the many exhibits Ed was hosting in his nearly stadium-sized space, was the Focal 1000 series Utopia 7.0.4 Dolby Atmos demonstration, the exact same setup that Focal presented in Dallas at this year's CEDIA Expo.

You want more "big" sound? The kind whose tentacles can reach into every nook and cranny of a large room with warm reverberant energy, rich tones, colorful harmonics, and bass tremors that'll seep through your seat? Then step right up, into the DALI room, which was showing its new flagship KORE loudspeakers ($150,000), monuments to state-of-the-art speaker design conceived in the land of the Vikings—Denmark—along with a pair of 200Wpc, class-D NAD M23 monoblocks ($5000 each), a streaming M33 integrated amp ($7800), an AudioQuest Niagara 5000 line conditioner (7000), and a bevy of AudioQuest Thunderbird Zero cabling.

And now for something completely different, Part 1. Shortly before the show, I received this invitation from George Taylor of Canadian distributor Entracte Audio:

"Hi Robert, I am writing to extend an invitation to Room 353 of the Westin Toronto Airport Hotel at Toronto Audiofest. The room will be jointly operated by Angela Yeung–Gilbert Yeung, (retailer) Absolute Sound, and Entracte Audio. . ."

In the killer-sound megabuck category, I present to you Wynn Audio's system, which, in your typical hotel exhibit room, wouldn't fit or, if it did, would be so squished together as to make the room look like a storage space, not a listening area. Here, in the spacious hall-like Carlyle room, Wynn Audio's system fit like a glove, a musical glove, I might add. Compared to its system at the last Toronto show in 2019, Wynn Audio went slightly lower key this time, not in the size or price of the equipment, but in the color of the demoed speakers. Those in 2019 were finished in an alluringly striking lime green. Forget lower key—this year was lower key lime.