Plug the CT-1 into an outlet and it will measure the THD+N noise carried on your line. You can plug headphones into the output to <I>hear</I> the noise pollution, or you can measure it with a test instrument. The CT-1 will also alert you to DC on your line.

Dussun was showing a line of power conditioners (500W, 800W, and 1200W) that offered waveform shaping, regulation, isolation, and DC suppression. Oh yeah, and they offer 85% efficiency. The X-1200 retails for $2500.

Zhou Yi of W'inner is kind of a crazy guy&mdash;audiophile crazy. His stuff is all big, and so are his aspirations. He really likes class-A, too.

NuForce's S-9 was pretty interesting, too. The cabinet is constructed of birch plywood laminations, which creates both the inner and outer profiles. The tweeter is mounted into a fairly deep horn and flanked by the twin midrange/woofers. There's a built-in switchable Zobel filter and an external crossover, which can be purchased as active or passive. Speaker wire is included in the S-9's $5500/pair (USD) price.

After my first few days wandering through the show, I began to wonder where all the Chinese speakers were&mdash;the relatively normal ones, I mean.

I'm currently attending GuangZhou Hi-Fi 2006 in GuangZhou, China (you can read my <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/china2006//index.html">China Hi-Fi Tour 2006 blog</A>). The show is a fantastic audio event and everywhere I look, I see products I want&mdash;some very similar to mainstream US brands and some exceedingly strange and different. But the <I>audiophiles</I> are familiar: Show me a guy who lights up in the glow of a 300B and I'll show you one of <I>my</I> chosen people.

For many years I have used three sets of headphones, all from Grado Laboratories: the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/796grado">Reference RS-1</A> ($695), the SR-125 ($125), and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/532">SR-60</A&gt; ($60). I've always favored Grado headphones because the minimal-resonance design philosophy that I feel is responsible for the uncolored midrange of their moving-iron cartridges extends throughout their headphone range as well. Recently, however, I've achieved a new perspective regarding the SR-125 'phones that I felt would be of interest to <I>Stereophile</I> readers.