Scott Walker Audio staked out its own mini-empire at the Hilton Long Beach, occupying six of the hotel's largest suites on the third floor. The first one I encountered revealed the inimitable Ted Denney of Synergistic Research staging a pretty ballsy demo. Ted set up two identical systems in adjacent rooms, both with a McIntosh C2600 tube preamp ($7500) and MC462 Amplifier ($9000), Elac Adante AF61 floorstanding speakers ($4995/pair), Bluesound Node 2i streamer ($500), and Solid Tech Rack ($2600). The difference was that one system took advantage of a Synergistic Research PowerCell 8 UEF SE power conditioner ($2995), new Synergistic Research entry-level Foundation interconnect and speaker cables plus UEF Blue power cords ($4000), and a host of various Synergistic Research room acoustic products ($6500), which in my experience are quite effective if nonetheless baffling to many.

Small does not mean negligible. Especially when a system includes the first West Coast showing of ATC's new CD2 CD player ($2349) and SIA2-100 integrated amp/DAC ($3749).

As one of the only companies to send out a press release prior to the opening of T.H.E. Show, ATC—along with its host, Lone Mountain Audio—earned pride of place in my "I can't possibly do them all" list of show coverage priorities.

It's Thursday afternoon at the Hilton Long Beach in Long Beach, California, and signs of T.H.E. Show, which opens on Friday, June 7, at noon, are everywhere in evidence.

Ever since the first electrical loudspeaker—a glorified headphone with a horn on it—was outmoded by the balanced-armature cone speaker, paper has been the standard diaphragm material for speakers reproducing low frequencies. The Rice-Kellogg moving-coil transducer replaced the balanced-armature driving system in 1925, but the paper cone remained. And although many improvements have since been made, were no more major changes in loudspeaker design for over 30 years!