Jason Victor Serinus

At least two people I know came up to me in the hallways of the Marriott to urge me to check out Intuitive Audio's new Gamma Summit speakers ($10,000/pair). As soon as I walked into the room, the fabulous bass on Patricia Barber's rendition of "Keep on Using Me Until You Use Me Up"—I'm guessing at the title—told me why. The system's riveting presentation also featured the kind of musical highlights for days that audiophiles love. Next I heard the same Mahler Symphony 2 recording I've been playing a lot at RMAF 2009. The speakers did an extremely fine job of controlling and highlighting the bass line, and also sounded very vibrant on top. Congratulations to designer Dale Pitcher for a job well done.

I was glad that Darren and Bonnie Censullo's Avatar Acoustics demmed four new products at RMAF, because they created a synergistic match that produced beautiful sound.

Cable manufacturers Nordost and Vertex AQ had good reason to present their joint seminar, "New Approach to Audio Measurement: Why Cables Really Matter," no less than five times during the show. As Art Dudley will report at length in his December "Listening" column, their groundbreaking new approach to measurement, developed by Nordost and Vertex AQ in collaboration with military electronic-engineering consultant Gareth Humphrey Jones, has produced an entirely new method for measuring the audible effects of components on sound. We're talking not only cables, support platforms, and the like, all of which can now be unequivocally shown to affect a system's sound quality, but also CD players, amplifiers, and speakers.

Genesis Advanced Technologies was demming two new products: the latest iteration of owner/designer Gary Leonard Koh's new Absolute Fidelity Music Server, whose white paper is available on the Genesis website, and a new preamp. The preamp, a joint effort between Genesis and Steve McCormack's SMC Audio, boasts all-analog switching and controls. (Fully balanced, the solid-state preamp boasts all-analog switching and controls. The basic model will be priced somewhere between $4000 and $5000, with the first model scheduled for release priced around $8000. Pictured is Bruno De Lorimier, Canadian sales rep for Genesis, who is kneeling next to the rack with the new preamp.

Todd Garfinkle of M&#149;A Recordings (right) has built an enviable reputation as one of the finest producers of quality audiophile recordings on the market. The repertoire is remarkably diverse. From performances of Bach organ music and the Chinese GuZheng to such one-of-a-kind gems as <I>Buenos Aires Madrigal </I>and the fabulous <I>Ser&#225; Una Noch </I> albums, M&#149;A Recordings are as notable for their diversity of instrumentation and repertoire as their full range sound.

Nothing convinces more than a fabulous recording wonderfully reproduced. Wilson Audio scored big time when it engaged recording engineer Peter McGrath as its marketing VP. McGrath's recordings are legendary. When sourced from master hi-res computer files, played back using the superior Amarra Music Server software, they're pretty riveting.

For those of us with DACs that lack USB and/or FireWire inputs, getting uncompromised, full-range sound out of our computers is a bit of a challenge. There are a number of interfaces on the market, but most are slaved to the computer's inferior clock. I've tried one of these, and it conveys neither the bass nor the clarity of my transport.