It's always a jolting, life-renewing Ka-BLAM when a new experience shatters your preconceptions of the order of things. From the moment you realize your dad isn't running right alongside you as you fly down the sidewalk on your first two-wheeler, to when you become a made man, these experiences forever alter how you view yourself and the world around you.

Salon 1 Audio made its first-ever appearance at a high-end audio show with a demo room featuring upper-tier amplification from VTL’s Series III: the TL-7.5 Reference linestage preamplifier ($30,000) and MB-185 Signature monoblock amps ($22,500/pair), and the TP-2.5i Performance phonostage ($5000) paired with a Sumiko Palo Santos MC cartridge ($4500) and a Pro-Ject Xtension 12 turntable ($4500) with a lovely high-gloss mahogany wood plinth.

Rupert Neve Designs, the legendary pro-audio maker of recording studio consoles and other equipment for concert halls and beyond, has expanded its product offerings for the home-audio market—ie, music lovers and audiophiles—with its new Fidelice series, including a full-featured DAC/controller with Neve's analog circuitry and an AKM-based DAC chip inside, a phono preamp, and a headphone amp. The three Fidelice components share a retro-modern look with matte aluminum casings with inlayed mahogany wood on top, red-accented control dials, little throw switches, LED lights, and tiny text that reminded me a bit of my first piece of gear, an oldie-but-goodie Advent 300 receiver. Their form factor is distinctive too: trapezoidal with rounded edges, with the DAC housed in a larger chassis.

Offering a "sneak preview" before the official debut at AXPONA 2020, Endow Audio introduced the latest iteration of its speaker, the piano-black T35 ($19,900), a two-way with a patent-pending Point Array and a 12-inch woofer. It may be rather otherworldly in appearance (grilles are included) but rather unique in its approach. Basically, it consists of an array of nine full-range 3" drivers configured with a single 8" loading driver to create a point source. The woofer takes over frequencies at 100Hz (and below) via an inboard passive crossover. The T35 also contains patent-pending Passive Signal Processor (PSP) technology.

Tandberg of Norway has a rather ambiguous corporate image among audio perfectionists. Long considered to make some of the best tape-recording equipment around, the firm has never been seen as a leader in electronics, despite some bold—and reportedly good-sounding—forays into the realm of $2000 preamps and $3500 power amplifiers. Perhaps this is why, when Tandberg started making CD players, high-enders were uncertain how to respond.

On Sunday morning I eased into my rounds with the Musical Surroundings folks: In conjunction with local dealer Sweet Home Audio, they presented a sweet-sounding, straight-up analog setup that featured several products at (relatively) more affordable price points than is sometimes the case.