Rogier van Bakel

Her first professional recording became a career-defining global hit, changed the culture, and helped make bossa nova a worldwide phenomenon. but there's a dark side to the success of "The Girl From Ipanema," which followed the Brazilian chanteuse until her recent death.

In my high-school days, I visited a friend whose well-to-do dad proudly demonstrated his new Quad ESL system for us. First up was a recording of a man with heavy footsteps traversing the space from left to right. Next came a speeding police car, siren engaged, complete with Doppler tail. I found it impressive, and a little lame at the same time. My friend and I, in love with our own artsiness, preferred Fear of Music by Talking Heads and Drums and Wires by XTC, or (in a pinch) U2's Boy.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that I'd ultimately derive frequent joy from listening to sound effects (though in my case they're usually integral to the music, not apart from it). When I hear Yosi Horikawa's bouncing marbles on Wandering, I prick up my ears and smile. A panting dog on Holly Cole's Temptation, an overhead hovercar on the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack ... bring it on. A babbling river on Andrew Bird's Echolocations; seed pods on Tom Waits's Blood Money; liquid splashes and crinkling paper on Felix Laband's Dark Days Exit ... yes, please. I don't care if it's a little gimmicky. It's also sensual in the original meaning of the word, an aural pleasure.

The Raidho TD3.8 speakers that, after three months, just departed my home, do the trick of conjuring points in space with great acuity.

Trigger warning: If sky-high prices for audio gear make you gnarly, this AXPONA report (and many others) won't lift your mood. Just the MasterBuilt-brand cabling in dealer Scott Walker Audio's room carried a heart-stopping six-figure price tag.

The space, featuring Von Schweikert Ultra 7 speakers ($180,000/pair), wasn't especially small or large. Let's call it a Goldilocks room. Leif Swanson, Von Schweikert's chief designer, said that the brand's products had often been demoed in big expo rooms, which occasionally scared off potential buyers who assumed that the speakers needed a jumbo-sized space to sing. Not so, says the company.

Masimo must have been the biggest, most valuable company at AXPONA by far. Its market valuation is slightly north of 10 billion dollars. The NASDAQ-listed firm had more than two billion in revenues last year. And yet it's a safe bet that most expo-goers who saw the Masimo name on one of the demo rooms thought, "Who?"