Jason Victor Serinus, Stephen Francis Vasta

Brahms: Piano Concerto 2; Three Intermezzi; Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life; Beethoven: for Three, Vol.4; Coleridge-Taylor: Orchestral Works.

It may look relatively quiet in the lobby of the Radisson Blu Sobieski, one of the three official sites of the Audio Video Warsaw show. But once the 27th edition of three-day show officially opens on Friday, October 24, at noon, the Radisson's lobby will be so packed that show registrants will snake through it, past soon-to-be-packed restaurants, and out the front door.

At least three premieres, a number of rooms with glorious sound, and reunions with old friends both human and electronic distinguished my romp through the hallways of Warsaw's PGE Narodowy on the first day of Audio Video 2025 in Warsaw. Compared to other days I've spent at shows in Chicago, Munich, Florida, and Seattle, it was a pretty fine day.

Way back in the age when Stereophile's print magazine was the size of a theater playbill, common wisdom declared that the tube preamp was the ideal complement to solid state amplification.

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets Vol. 2 | Nos. 6–12
Cuarteto Casals
Harmonia Mundi HMU 902733.34. 2 CD (reviewed as 24/96). 2025. Alban Moraud, Alexandra Evrard, prod. and eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½

In ancient times, when I first ventured beyond playing files stored on a USB stick or NAS to streaming from Tidal and Qobuz, I ran a USB cable between a MacBook Pro and my DAC. For playback software, I alternated between Amarra, Audirvana, and—sometimes with a dCS DAC—dCS Mosaic.

Kiss on Wood, Rachel Yonan, viola; Kwan Yi, piano.; Shostakovich: Piano Concerti 1–2; Piano Works, Yuja Wang, piano; Boston Symphony/Andris Nelson; Begin The Song! A Purcell Academy, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, countertenor; Le Consort; Chopin: 24 Préludes; Sonata 2, Emil Gryesten, piano.