Jason Victor Serinus

In a four-room, every-seat-filled extravaganza that rivaled some of the Music Matters events in the number of high-quality components simultaneously on active display, the Berkeley, CA wing of Music Lovers Audio devoted the afternoon of December 5 to showcasing components from Vivid, dCS, Wilson, Luxman, Spectral, and other companies. With Philip O'Hanlon of On A Higher Note (distributor of Vivid, Luxman, and other brands), John R. Quick (dCS), Peter McGrath (Wilson Audio), and yours truly (above) on hand to give introductions and offer guidelines on how to listen and evaluate, a large store filled with audiophiles auditioned four fine-sounding systems at four different price points.

Canada's biggest three-day consumer audio and lots more show, TAVES, is poised to break its former attendance record when it opens in Toronto, Ontario on October 30. Newly reframed as "Canada's Ultimate Consumer Electronics Show," it opens less than a month after Denver's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and a mere week before the start of the Westchester County version of the New York Audio Show.

As the Stereophile Contributing Editor who has attended more Rocky Mountain Audio Fests than anyone except John Atkinson and Michael Fremer—that's me in the center—I've been entrusted with writing the show wrap. (John, it should be noted, deeply regrets that the magazine's production schedule made his attendance impossible.) But this time around, rather than simply relying on my own impressions, I posed questions to and gathered impressions from both my fellow bloggers, Sasha Matson (left above) and Herb Reichert (right above), and no fewer than 25 exhibitors.