T.H.E. Show Newport 2016

The stars were out, and it was a dark night…

My beat at T.H.E. Show 2016 was the ground floor. En route to the audio exhibits, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this beautiful black Bugatti. No information on this particular car was available, but I assumed it was part of the display of tasty automobiles in the Hotel Irvine's lobby and outdoors pavilion, put on by Reus Car Audio Design, Whitledge Design, Wyred 4 Sound, Magnum Automotive Design, and The Source Audio Video Design Group. Pride of place in the car exhibit was Sony's Hi-Res Audio demo vehicle, which had been shown off two days earlier at the Capitol Studios event in Hollywood.

There's more than one way to skin a cat—a profusion of ways to hook together audio components in the high-end world of today—and my hunch is that the number of dedicated cabling companies has increased within the past decade, and now exceeds that of any other audio-hardware category.

Only one question followed me to the 14th floor of Hotel Irvine: Will floor 2's unprecedented number of good-sounding rooms be repeated on other floors during T.H.E. Show Newport?

"Dear TSA, These are Hi-Fi components. They are magnetic. Nothing active. Thanks."

A Game of Thrones vibe hit me when I visited the room hosted by Texas-based distributor Believe High Fidelity…

During the second part of my first day at T.H.E. Show, I paid a visit to the Hotel Irvine's Woodbridge Room—a poetic name that gelled with the quality of the gear on display…