The mice in the walls call summer to close while nets come down and leaves turn dead red, but by the time you see this there'll be holiday music in the air . . . and some generous soul might, just might, sneak a few looks through this issue of Stereophile to see what gifts to buy before the tree goes up and presents are opened—and all will be nice!

And what better way to serve those possible givers of audio gifts—and, at the same time, honor our hobby's most deserving designers and manufacturers—than with our annual Product of the Year awards?

For audiophiles of a certain age, the mere mention of NAD Electronics' original 3020 integrated amplifier (1980, designed by Erik Edvardsen), or Adcom's GFA-555 stereo power amplifier (1985, designed by Nelson Pass), conjures up happy memories of audio's last Golden Age—an idyllic time when working stiffs could luxuriate in the same audio arcadia as bankers and brokers. Since then, few, if any, audio components have achieved that level of iconic high value. Which caused me to wonder: What would it take, nowadays, to manufacture a genuinely high-value audiophile product: one that delivers exciting, satisfying sound at a price most audiophiles can afford?

In this video, we join Stereophile writer Herb Reichert as he explores the 2017 New York Audio Show that took place last weekend at the Park Lane Hotel—this is the first of three videos covering the show. We're particularly excited about this series of videos for two reasons: First, viewers have eagerly been asking us to hear systems—not just see them. We've wanted to share that with viewers, but we wanted to do it right by creating a binaural recording, for playback over headphones.

"Why can't you stop being an audiophile?"

The question took me off-guard. It didn't come from one of the usual suspects—a hostile anti-audiophile, or a non-audiophile who simply can't fathom why we should care so much about something as nonessential as sound reproduction—but from Louis, a sharp dressed, goateed, middle-aged man who was known, among his audio repair shop's clientele, for not only his virtuosity as a classical solo violinist, but his expertise—some would say his preternatural ability—in setting up turntables to sound their very best.

Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It
Mack Avenue Mac 1115 (CD). 2017. Gretchen Valade, exec prod.; Christian McBride, prod.; Todd Whitelock, assoc. prod., eng.; Timothy Marchiafava, asst. eng. ADD? TT: 68:59
Performance ****½
Sonics *****

As musical movements go, rock and jazz seem to be running out of new ideas, most of the stylistic pathways in both genres having been explored to their logical conclusions. In rock in particular, every stream of inspiration has been followed past its headwaters, every droplet of inspiration wrung from established forms.

Seeing as I'd recently been in contact with the good people at Cambridge Audio when hoping to repair a 25-year-old integrated amplifier, it was great to put faces with names in the Cambridge Audio room…