When I finally made it through the crowd and into the Music Hall room, I took one look at pasty party animal, Leland Leard, and cried, "<i>Good god, man!</i> How are you feeling?"

Late Sunday afternoon, with only about an hour left before the show closed, it was still standing room only in the Music Hall room. Perhaps that had something to do with the choice of music. I walked in to be greeted by the naughty sounds of the Bear Family Records compilation, <i>Eat to the Beat: the dirtiest of them dirty blues</i>, featuring song titles I can't even mention here.

"Have you heard the little Ushers?" I was asked Friday. "Have you heard the little Ushers?" I was asked repeatedly on Saturday.

I encountered the same difficulty while talking with Red Wine Audio's Vinnie Rossi that I'd experienced the day before when chatting with Audio Advancements' <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051207hart/">Hart Huschens</a>. Happy customers kept frigging interrupting us. "Vinnie! Vinnie!" they'd announce again and again.

The Audioengine team is also looking at alternative cabinet materials. On display was a prototype A5 housed in lovely, sustainable bamboo. While the electronics remain the same, the bamboo models will incorporate added dampening.

Several of <i>Stereophile</i>'s editors were excited about the compact and inexpensive Audioengine 5 amplified speakers ($349/pair), which were bringing forth some sweet sounds playing files directly from a laptop. New to the Audioengine line is the tiny 2 (seen here, $199/pair), which offered a sound surprisingly similar to that of its bigger brother. The music was clean and clear, and conveyed an emotion that belied the speaker's size. Like the A5, the A2 keeps all of its electronics in the left speaker but, unlike the A5, it uses a front slot port for bass performance.

I'm just here for the beer.