I was less than thrilled by Editor-in-Chief Jim Austin's suggestion to review the solid-state Krell K-300i integrated amplifier ($7000, plus an additional $1000 for the optional DAC). I had recently reviewed another $7000 integrated amplifier, the quite different hybrid Aesthetix Mimas, and while I ended up liking the Mimas a whole lot, I felt decidedly lukewarm about having to recalibrate expectations for another integrated, especially one that costs far less than my reference Dan D'Agostino Progression monoblocks ($38,000/pair) and whose DAC option is a fraction of the price of my reference dCS Rossini DAC/Rossini Clock combination ($31,498 plus cables). How good could it be?

Everyone who reads my loudspeaker reviews knows: I wish box speakers did not sound like box speakers. Plus! I wish all speakers sounded focused and transparent like LS3/5a's or vintage Quads. I also want them to be uncompressed and play large, with window-shattering power and floor-shaking bass. And while I'm wishing . . . I'll take a little glow and sparkle and voodoo magic as well.

Following in the lineage of such iconic dub music masters as Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock and Lee "Scratch" Perry, producer Adrian Sherwood is the UK's contemporary pioneer of dub: the reverb-filled, beats-rattling, bass-thick music that erupted from "sound system" parties in Kingston, Jamaica in the 1960s.

Musical Artisans is proud to host the Nagra HD Line Show on December 6 and 7 in Chicago, with special guest René LaFlamme from Nagra.