Jason Victor Serinus

Next weekend's <A HREF="http://audiofest.net/2010/index.php?Sid=860cc0cc7b60fd7f9bd2725ff657784… Mountain Audio Fest</A> (RMAF) is bigger than ever. Scheduled to be held October 15&#150;17 in the Denver Marriott Tech Center, the seventh annual show has expanded from last year's 145 display rooms to a record 174. Add in silent displays in hallways, and there were products in every price range from a good 400 companies (up from 350 in 2009). Now occupying six floors in the Marriott Tower (including the mezzanine) and two in the Atrium, the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has well earned its reputation as the largest consumer-audio and home-entertainment show in the US since the demise of the <I>Stereophile</I> Shows.

Even as editing continues on his forthcoming Stereophile recording of Brahms' Handel Variations and Schumann's Symphonic Études, Canadian pianist Robert Silverman is set to perform and re-record all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Silverman's eight-concert series of Beethoven sonata performances and recordings will take place in San Jose's lovely Le Petit Trianon Theatre, beginning this coming Thursday, September 9 and ending on April 14, 2011.

According to a recent Consumer Electronics Association's (CEA) <A HREF="http://www.ce.org/Press/CurrentNews/press_release_detail.asp?id=11935">… release</A>, "CE Industry to Surpass $174 billion in 2010, Reach Record High by 2011," sales forecasts are far more optimistic than had been expected. While the figures aren't easily translatable to the high-end market (which the CEA identifies as "high-performance audio"), some consumer-electronic (CE) trends give cause for qualified optimism, and provide clues as to which products may prove most profitable for manufacturers and dealers.

Constantine and Ann Soo deserve a huge thank you from the audiophile community. Responding to pleas from insistent dealers and distributors, who lamented the absence of an audiophile show from the San Francisco Bay Area, Constantine and dagogo.com took a huge risk.

In his second, equally well-appointed room at the CA Audio Show, Elite Audio's Michael Woods was telling a visitor "People think that Meridian equipment is only for showing movies. But it's excellent for audio as well."

Rarely do I have time to visit a room twice, let alone space to post multiple blogs on a single exhibit. But because deHavilland/KE Engineering's Kara Chafee first showing of her KE Engineering/deHavilland Model 222 Magnetic Tape Playback Preamplifier ($1,995) was severely handicapped by the lack of her deHavilland KE 50A monoblock power amplifiers ($9995/pair), which had been <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/dehavillandke_small_is_supreme/">de… in shipment</A>, I made sure to return when I learned that the amps had finally arrived.

At the other end of the room from the JBL Everest DD-66000 I <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/jbl_at_the_summit/">wrote about on the first day</A>, Design Interaction was switching between the JBL 1400 Array ($11,000/pair) and Revel Ultima2 Salon loudspeakers ($22,000/pair), both speakers very well-reviewed in <I>Stereophile</I>. Heard through a dark-charactered Mark Levinson No.532 amp ($20,000), No.512 SACD player ($15,000), and No.526A preamp ($10,000), hooked up by MIT Oracle cables ($3500, with allocation not specified), the much f&#234;ted Revels smoked the less expensive JBLs, I thought.