Jason Victor Serinus

Grand Prix Audio, whose attractive isolation racks, amp stands, turntables and other products featured prominently in multiple rooms at LAAS, debuted their less expensive Grand Prix Audio Parabolica turntable ($16,500). Here shown with TriPlanar 2SE tonearm ($7500) and Lyra Etna cartridge ($8995), the Parabolica rested on a Grand Prix Formula shelf upgrade ($2495) to the 4-shelf Monaco Modular isolation system ($10,250) that was supported by Apex Feet with levelers ($1320). I was told by the company's Jesse Luna that the Grand Prix Parabolica, which is based on the Monaco 2.0 turntable ($37,500), has a direct-drive system with factory-sealed hydrodynamic bearing that never needs servicing.

One of the several rooms from Audio Plus Services at LAAS was headlined by the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista CD player ($9999) and Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800 integrated amplifier ($11,999) driving Focal Sopra No.2 loudspeakers ($13,995/pair) via Crystal cabling. Solid Tech's Rack of Silence ($5795) and assorted IsoAcoustics Iso-Pucks completed a chain whose electronics—even the loudspeaker—had less than 24 hours of break-in. Hence, beyond saying that the timbres were beautiful, I shall refrain from critical comments that most likely would not apply had the system been show-ready.

At first-time show venues with hosts of unknowns, some exhibitors luck out, while others unwittingly end up with unmanageable spaces. Alas, to retailer Brian Berdan of Audio Element in Pasadena did fall the distinct dishonor of two larger 2nd floor rooms with the noisiest, constantly-on air conditioning I have ever encountered at an audio show. Perhaps to compensate for an environment destined to repel rather than attract, Brian tilted the Wilson Audio Yvette loudspeakers ($22,500/pair) upwards, so that people who didn't even bother to sit would get more of a sense of all they can do.

As the second wave of registrants stood in multiple lines in the lobby of the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles on the morning of Friday, June 2, the Los Angeles Audio Show was already off to a promising start. And what a promise it was. The night before show's open, when I encountered the force behind LAAS, Bob Levi of the Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society, in a hotel elevator, he told me that pre-registration had already topped 7500 people. That number, it seems, has set new records for attendance at an audio show in Southern California. It also undoubtedly sets a pre-registration record for any first-time high-end audio show in the US that welcomes the general public.

Newcomers to the music of Argentinean tango composer Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992) will undoubtedly join the already converted in hailing the arrival of Warner's two-disc CD compilation, The Sound of Piazzolla. Filled with one fascinating performance after the other, many of which were transcribed for the particular forces at hand when they were recorded between 1996 and 2016, this set will seduce many who are not already under Piazzolla's spell.

Twenty-four years after The Hilliard Ensemble and saxophonist Jan Garbarek recorded Officium, the first of their three haunting, century-crossing collaborations for ECM New Series, Trio Mediaeval has done something similar with trumpeter Arve Henriksen. On their latest ECM New Series album, Rímur, the vocal trio of Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fugiseth, and Berit Opheim teams up with Henriksen to produce timeless versions of chants, hymns, folk songs and improvisations based on Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish sources from earlier times.