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Day Four at AEShttp:www.aes.org/">AES;. The crowds were somewhat thinner, but the convention floor was still buzzing, still incredibly busy right up to 4pm, the official break-down time. I spent a couple of hours strolling the floor with Vacuum">http://vacuumtube.com/">Vacuum Tube Valley's Eric Barbour, who works another side of the thermionic street as an application engineer for Svetlana, the Portola Valley, CA-based importer of Russian-made tubes. Svetlana will soon be making the ubiquitous 12AX7 and other popular tubes in its St. Petersburg factory, he told me. Instability in Russia has hindered production recently, but Eric said all such problems have been solved. He also mentioned that VTV has moved to new offices and should soon be published quarterly. I stood by as he made a sales call at the Millennia">http://www.mil-media.com/">Millennia Media booth.

Nexus Audio Technologies' Walter Schofield presented a rig consisting of the VPI Avenger Direct turntable with Fatboy tonearm ($36,000), VPI Shyla cartridge ($2500), and Primare R35 MM/MC phono preamp ($2000); the 432 EVO Master Music Server with Roon core endpoint ($18,000); the Primare PRE35 Prisma DM36 streaming preamplifier featuring the new DM36 advanced DAC module with MQA processing ($5250); and two Primare A35.2 stereo amplifiers ($3900 each) bridged to mono. Walter also presented the Stenheim Alumine Two.five Loudspeakers ($23,500/pair) in their North American debut, a full loom of interconnects, power cables, and speaker wire by Anticables, and a Pangea Audio Vulcan Five Shelf audio rack ($250).

Audio professionals and "prosumers" with home studios have long sung the praises of NHT's compact powered monitor, the M-00 (affectionately called "the moo"); powered subwoofer, the S-00 (don't make us say it); and passive volume control, the PVC (a JA favorite). Until July 18, however, these products were only available at studio suppliers and professional audio sales centers. NHT, acceding to "growing demand and an evolving market," will now allow its specialty audio dealer network to offer the formerly Pro products to their clientele as part of NHT's PC Hi-Fi line.

When last we heard business news from NHT, it had been acquired">http://stereophile.com/news/051506nht/">acquired by Vinci Labs in 2006. Today, NHT managing director Chris Byrne told Stereophile, "We are sitting down right now and signing the papers to purchase NHT, Inc. from Vinci Labs, creating NHT Audio, LLC."

Andy Regan, NHT's senior vice-president of sales and marketing, could barely contain his glee. "I'm happy—no, I'm proud—no, I'm happy and proud to announce that Mary Cardas is NHT's North American sales manager."

One of the more compelling live demonstrations at last year's 2001 Consumer Electronics Show was in the room at the Alexis Park hosted by Australia's ClarityEQhttp://www.clarityeq.com">ClarityEQ;. As reported">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10969/">reported last year, using a $350 pair of NHT Super One speakers driven by mass-market consumer gear, the company's PDC-6.6 DSP correction system noticeably improved the midrange tonality and imaging we were hearing each time it was switched into the circuit. This prompted us to give the company the "proof of concept in a hotel room" award for that year.

Arizona-based Rockford">http://www.rockfordcorp.com">Rockford Corporation announced last week that it has acquired loudspeaker designer Now">http://www.nhthifi.com">Now Hear This (NHT) from Recoton Corporation. Previous Rockford acquisitions include Fosgate, Hafler, Acoustat, and MB Quart. The company says that specific terms of the new agreement are confidential.