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Fidelio!

I always look forward to visiting recording engineer René Laflamme of Fidelio at FSI, because he always has new fun recordings to play.

He didn't disappoint, either. This year's treat was the Micheal Donato Trio, which delivered a smoking "Nocturno." Next up was Laflamme's recording of the carillon of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. The high-rez digital recording revealed all the ambient noises of outdoor Montreal, while also offering direct and immediate sound of the carillon itself.

"It sounds like you're standing right in front of it. It doesn't sound at all like you…

Like My Birthday Cake, Only Hotter

A bird's eye view of the ARC Reference 610T. The thermal updraft was fierce!

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Glass

The Galactus-sized Audio Research Reference 610T monoblock amplifiers ($20,000/ea) put out 600W. They require 8 matched pairs of 6550C output tubes, one 6550c regulator, one 6H30 as an amplifier regulator, a pair of 6550Cs as drivers, two 6NIP input tubes, and a 6H30 follower—that's a ton of tubes.

But man, oh man, did it makes Sonus Faber's Stradivarius sing in the Son or Filtronique room.

Details here.

Singing For His Supper—en Francais

The first evening of the show, I had a most pleasant dinner with John Atkinson, Stereophile associate publisher Keith Pray, columnist John Marks, and the folks from Dynaudio and Simaudio. During the pre-dinner conversation, John Marks illustrated a point he was making by singing a bit, ably demonstrating his ex-choirboy credentials. His performance was apparently noticed by the people at the next table; at the end of the meal, one of the ladies at that table came over to us and said that this was her friend's birthday, and asked if the gentleman who was singing before could sing "Happy…

What's an Audio Show Without a Party?

What's an audio show without a party? Sponsored by Stereophile, the party on the first day of the show was for the exhibitors, trade visitors, and the press, and featured the Quebec rock group Give, with lead singer Caroline St. Louis.

It Could Only Happen in Montreal

I was riding the elevator yesterday, when I spotted Attention Screen's Mark Flynn and Chris Jones. I jumped out of the lift and asked, "What's up?"

"We are looking for large men," Chris said.

?!?

"We need to get the piano onto the stage," Mark explained. "It's on the floor."

I volunteered and they went to find more brawn. Ten minutes later, a gang of 15 Montrealers entered, sent by FSI show organizer Michel Plante. We surrounded the piano, chanted "One, two, allez" and cleaned and jerked that sucker up and over the stage lip. One minute later, they were gone…

Lucky Number 781

Wadia was showing its almost ready-to-ship CD/SACD player, the $15,000 781. (A 781i with digital inputs and outputs is also in the works.) The 781 uses two signal processors feeding a programmable gate array and the company's proprietary DigiMaster 2.5 upsampling software. This, Wadia claims, results in a data rate of 1.4112 million samples per second. The 781 also sports Clocklink jitter reduction for both CD and SACD.

Driving an Audio Research Reference 3 preamp, a pair of ARC Reference 610T monoblocks, and Sonus Faber Stradivari homage loudspeakers, the 781 sounded as dynamic…

The Calm Before Happy Hour

What does this photo of the bar in the Sheraton illustrate? Well, I could say that it provides further confirmation of the fact that it snowed in Montreal. But the real reason is that I just like this shot, taken with the Sigma 15mm fisheye on the Canon 5D, and thought that audiophiles that are also into photography (and there are many such in my acquaintance) might enjoy seeing it.

Well, Wouldn't You Just Know It?

It's been said often enough to be considered as a truism that FSI is an occasion for snow: at the show's opening, during the show, or at least when the show is closing. But it looked like this year was going to be an exception; the weather forecast for the three days of the show called for temperatures well above freezing, with rain on Friday.

And so Friday rolled around and—guess what?—it started snowing at around noon and continued the rest of the day. The picture accompanying this blog item may look suspiciously like one that was part of my show report last year, but I can…

Ah, Puccini

dCS is known for its superb-sounding but stratospherically-priced digital source components—prices in the $50k+ range for a transport/DAC combination. While their new Puccini one-box CD/SACD player won't be a candidate for Budget Component of the Year, its $22,000 price represents low end for dCS. But don't start spending all the money you've saved by buying the Puccini rather than the more expensive dCS offerings: there is a matching external clock component upgrade that will be available in the near future. No price has been determined yet, but you can be sure that it will not be in…