But it's a step in the right direction.

<I>Living In Stereo</I> posts Dave Marsh's 1983 must-read about Florence Thompson, the subject of Dorothea Lange's harrowing FSA photo portrait. It's a great read&mdash;and add <I>LIS</I> to my daily rounds of the 'Net.

It's no secret that I'm a fan of good writing. Well, if you ask me, Jon Carroll writes more better stuff every day than most writers write <I>ever</I>. This column is great even by Carroll's high standards. Just read it and see why Carroll's column is my first stop every day.

Much as I hate to admit it, the experience of going into a <I>record</I> store, particularly a big glorious mom and pop indie store, is fast becoming a thing of the past.

And so we say goodbye to the Sheraton Gateway and the City of Angels. Home Entertainment 2006 was a good Show, with some great sounds. I echo Wes Phillips's sentiments below. In talking to people, I had a sense that we were all part of a community of individuals with much the same goals, if not always the same way of reaching them. The Show staff were unfailingly pleasant and efficient. The hotel’s facilities served the needs of both exhibitors and attendees well&mdash;and by the last day of the show I actually figured out how to go from my room to the escalators without making at least one wrong turn!

I joke sometimes at Home Entertainment Shows, as I regard the crowds jostling one another to enter rooms, paw through bins of records, or get the good seats at the musical events, that "these are <I>my</I> people." The thing is, it's <I>true</I>. I do the same things.

I'm a guy who loves traditions: I attribute it to growing up in Virginia, a state that reveres tradition, my wife claims it's just OCD. Whatever&mdash;I have made it a tradition at every HE Show I can remember to visit Luke Manley's VTL room at the last minute on the last day because it always lets me leave on a high note. Manley did not disappoint this year in the room he shared with dealer Brooks Berdan, the "king of analog."

Southern California's Brooks Berdan, Ltd. continued to affirm the store’s reputation for high-quality sound in its Ayre/Vandersteen room, which had also impressed Wes Phillips in an <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2006/060206mxr/">earlier blog entry</A>. Listening to the Ayre MXR 300W monoblocks ($16,500/pair), K-1x preamp ($7000), C-X5e universal player ($5950), and about-to-be-released power conditioner, connected to each other and the wood-finish Vandersteen Quatro speakers ($10,700/pair) by Ayre's own cabling, I encountered a soundstage whose height and depth had no right to exist in such a small space. But beyond issues of size and depth, listening to a Channel Classics SACD of the Ebony Band Amsterdam performing the music of Silvestre Revueltas enabled me to enter that composer's phantasmagoric universe in a deeper, more all-consuming way that I had ever before experienced. It was as if I was inside Revueltas' head, haunted by the very demons that drove him to write his extraordinary music. To discover myself so immersed in music in the middle of a bustling show was a rare gift.