What better way to start an audio show than with live music? With that in mind, one hour before the official start of the 2017 Montreal Audio Fest, Canadian distributor Plurison hosted, in their capacious display room, a too-brief performance by cellist Vincent Bélanger and singer-pianist Anne Bisson. They performed a few selections from their new LP Conversions—a project that was sponsored by Lily Luo and cable manufacturer XLO.

The soul of a loudspeaker cannot be exclusively characterized by such unmeasurable, reviewer-friendly declarations as "lush tonality," "gossamer textures," "clear-water transparency," "microdetail," or "pacey dynamic rhythmic expression." Neither can it be fully described by such measurable characteristics as anechoic frequency response, dynamic impedance, or step response. More than anything else, a loudspeaker expresses its full character in how and where it directs the listener's attention. What a loudspeaker emphasizes—what it reveals, what it obscures, what it forces the listener to notice and think about—that is a loudspeaker's soul.

There’s already one good bit of news out of the 2017 Montreal Audio Fest, which begins at 11am today and runs through 5pm on Sunday: reconstruction of the interior of the show’s longstanding venue, the Hotel Bonaventure—a project that was in full, noisy swing during last year’s show—has now been completed, restoring the Bonaventure’s glory in general and its superb bistro/watering hole in particular. It was there that I enjoyed a short pre-show encounter with the audio-industry luminaries pictured above (L–R): Jeff Joseph (Joseph Audio), Doug Schneider (Soundstage.com), Keith Pray (Stereophile), Meredith Gabor (Nordost), and Mat and Harry Weisfeld (VPI Industries).

In 2016, the vinyl information and e-commerce site Discogs.com broke its own most-expensive LP-sale record twice. In March 2016, David Bowie's David Bowie went for $6826. That post-Bowie, death-related purchase was then topped when the next rock star fell. A month later, in April, a copy of Prince's Black Album, the grail of his catalog, went for $15,000. In recent days, however, the record was broken again when a test pressing of cult guitar hero Billy Yeager's 301 Jackson Street, one of just eight ever made, went for $18,000.

The 2017 Montreal Audio Fest starts tomorrow at its traditional venue, the Hotel Bonaventure Montréal (900 de la Gauchetière Ouest). In its current incarnation, this is the second year for the show after being "rescued" in 2016 by Michel Plante and Sarah Tremblay. Both had been long associated with the Canadian show before it was sold to the Chester Group in 2013.