Here's another shot of the Ask The Editors seminar, this time from the audience.

Guitarist Anthony Wilson, whose new album with his 9-piece band, "The Power of Nine" was featured in the May <I>Stereophile</I>, turned in a blistering set of hard-blowing jazz Friday afternoon at Home Entertainment 2006, courtesy of AudioQuest, Audio Research, and Vandersteen.

In the Show's ongoing HE Luminaries series, Jim Thiel, founder of Thiel Audio, talked to John Atkinson about his ideas on speaker design, and the evolution of his speakers through the years, including the new CS3.7, which made its debut at HE2006.

Ask the Editors: the view from the stage. The questions this year did <I>not</I> include the usual ones about which exhibits people liked the most, recommendations about tweaks, and why <I>Stereophile</I> doesn’t do blind testing in all reviews. Instead, there were questions about things like intellectual property rights, the future of various audio formats, and whether multichannel represents a worthwhile enhancement of the music-listening experience. Very polite and friendly.

Shanling is known for the striking industrial design of their tube electronics. Seen in the Music Hall room, the new A500 integrated amp ($6499) maintains the striking looks, but it's solid-state. Lots of nice blue lights, though.

A gaggle of Clearaudio turntables. "They’re only a fraction of the ones that are available," said Garth Leerer of US importer Musical Surroundings.

My final visit of the Show's first public day was to Jay Rein's Bluebird Music, Ltd. room. Tucked into a small niche in a space otherwise dominated by Chord electronics and Neat loudspeakers (which Jay considers an ideal match for Chord) sat an unobtrusive Exposure system consisting of the Exposure 2010S CD player and integrated amp ($1250 each) connected to diminutive NEAT Acoustics Motive 2 loudspeakers ($1995/pair) by entry-level Kubala-Sosna speaker cables. Rein and CA dealer Michael Silver of Audio High then proceeded to blow my mind with budget magic. As was the case with the new, even lower-priced Denon system I described yesterday, the system's evenly balanced, full-range sound blew me away. Now I understand why <I>Stereophile</I> has heaped praise on Exposure Electronics. I'd love to hear this stuff powered by after-market power cables and a power conditioner of some sort. Stuff that sounds this good can only sound better when given the opportunity to demonstrate its full potential.