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A large, almost loft-style suite on the 16th floor housed a big, all-out system presented by Bending Wave USA, the Florida-based distributor/dealer for Germany's Göbel Audio (among other brands); their name nods to Göbel Audio's bending wave drivers. At the end of a no-holds-barred chain, a pair of glossy black Göbel Divin Marquis speakers (see John Atkinson's review; $90,000/pair) pumped out soundwaves. Their bold geometric form with all its angular surfaces kind of resemble a robot; I mean that in a good way: They're neat-looking.

An AMT tweeter—a heavily modified Mundorf…

The MoFi Distribution classic gear fun continued in Suite 346, with two pairs of Wharfedale Heritage Linton speakers ($1799/pair), stacked, with the one on top inverted so that the two tweeters were in the middle. One Wharfedale Linton stand ($399/pair) supported each side's stack.

MoFi showed so much that it'd be nearly impossible to cover it all, but I want to mention a few new introductions from Suite 346. I wrote about the MoFi Electronics x Fender PrecisionDeck turntable ($3495) in the December 2021 issue's Industry Update, and I had seen photos of it, but the limited-…

Dealer/distributor Verdant Audio's room included a few important debuts, including the new Wilson Benesch Geometry Discovery IIIZ standmount loudspeaker ($31,000). The speaker updates the English company's Geometry lineup, and it's the second model with its monocoque enclosure incorporating the recently developed A.C.T. 3Zero material, a "greener" carbon-fiber alternative that's said to be almost entirely free of petroleum products: Even the resin has been replaced by a "bio resin," Verdant Audio Founder Scott Bierfeldt told me. It's also said to require about half the amount of energy to…

Joe is an all-in Denafrips guy (footnote 1) who currently uses an Ares II in his bedroom system and a Terminator in his big studio system, to which he listens while he works, typically for 10 hours per day. He paints his car, dog, and horse pictures while listening through a pair of dusty, paint-spattered Klipsch La Scala horns sitting on cement…

Hoping to impress Vlad with the Terminator Plus's ability to express the qin's full harmonic spectrum, I played Xia Fuxi performing "A Fisherman's Song" from Chinese Traditional and Folk Music: Guqin Vol.3 (16/44.1 FLAC, China Record Corporation/ Qobuz), a demonstration-quality guqin recording. The sound was so ridiculously tangible…

Yes, back then, hi-fi dealerships played a critical role in exposing people to good sound. According to industry stalwart Anthony Chiarella, they still do—indeed, they must. The industry, though, faces serious challenges—including continuing to introduce…

Description: Digital breakout box that extracts multichannel or stereo audio data (PCM or DSD) from HDMI sources. Inputs: HDMI 2.0. Supported input formats: PCM (up to 24/192), DSD64. Outputs, multichannel version: HDMI 2.0 and choice of 4 AES3 (XLR), 4 S/PDIF (RCA or BNC) outputs. Stereo version: one each AES3, S/PDIF, and TosLink. Output sample rates: up to 24/192kHz (from PCM) or DoP (from DSD64). Word clock and Super clock outputs. Separate power supply for HDMI and audio circuitry via dual USB-C connections. Supplied accessories: two 5V/1A DC power supplies…

Digital sources: Oppo Digital UDP-105 universal disc player, custom Baetis Prodigy-X4i music server running JRiver Media Center v28 and Roon 1.8, Mytek Brooklyn+, exaSound s88 streaming DAC and Okto dac8 PRO D/A processors. QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Preamplifier: Coleman Audio 7.1SW for source switching.
Power Amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD C 298.
Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima2 Studio with IsoAcoustics Gaia I isolation feet. Revel Performa3 f206 for surrounds. Two SVS SB-3000 & one SB-2000Pro subwoofers.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee USB,…

When I need information about recordings, I go to Discogs. At Discogs, Kevin Gray has more than 2500 entries. That's as good an indicator as any of the amount of ground he has covered in his career so far as a creative participant in the recorded-music art known as mastering. Since starting out in the early 1970s, in Los Angeles, he has worked for all the major music labels and many independents, in all music genres.

At one time, behind-the-scenes jobs like Gray's were anonymous and technical—not really viewed as real creative work. When the Beatles started…