Rogier van Bakel

If admiring a pair of Acora Acoustics speakers up-close inspires a sudden desire to cut some broccoli or wash the dishes, it's probably because they're handcrafted from naturally flecked granite, similar to some bespoke countertops. But there's nothing wishy-washy—or cold—about the sound of the Acoras I briefly auditioned at the Florida show. Beguiling and authoritative is more like it. In Tampa, Acora paired its brand new VRC speakers with VAC Statement 452 monoblocks ($150,000/pair), an Aurender digital front end consisting of an N30SA streamer ($25,000) and an MC20 clock ($30,000), and a $50,000 LampizatOr Horizon DAC.

If you live in Maine, and it's wintertime, and a kind magazine editor calls offering a getaway to the Florida International Audio Expo, what do you say? In my case, it was Yes please. And so, yesterday, I arrived at the Embassy Suites Westshore in sunny Tampa, suddenly without the need for scarves and double-insulated boots, but with my usual hankering for a serious hi-fi fix. I'll be getting a three-day series of them, in fact. Lucky me.

Patches was the first to exit the car, sporting a nose like an overripe tomato. Amid the sawdust-and–tiger-dung smell that wafted through the bigtop, he nimbly extracted himself from the multicolored Mini Cooper, face beaming with vows of slapstick and mischief. Patches gestured behind him, to Chuckles, who emerged with floppy shoes the length of baguettes. Next to squeeze out of the Mini were Bozo, Klutzy, Wiggle, Dinky, Cletus, Peewee, Pinhead, Joey, Sparkles, and Poppy—all wearing baggy pants in shouty hues and huge smiles applied with grease paint. I shuddered with delight. I was 8.

I like to think that my musical tastes are pretty eclectic: jazz, pop, blues, Americana, metal, world music, ambient, prog rock, more. Operatic music and classical singing, though? Thanks, I'll pass.

There are exceptions. I find tear-tugging beauty in "Ebben? Ne Andrò Lontana" from Alfredo Catalani's La Wally, whether sung by Donij van Doorn or Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez (footnote 1). The German Lieder of Kurt Weill, as interpreted by soprano Teresa Stratas, produce gladness in my heart but confusion in my uncomprehending wife and children. Maybe it's because the often sarcastic, gruff songs about the travails of the lumpenproletariat contrast with the purity of Stratas's classically trained voice. That clash is precisely what I love about it.

Pop quiz. What does the following verbiage describe? And what does it mean?

"It's about what we love the most. It's about what we hate the most. It's about what we wait for but never happens. Relationships turn on, interrupt, and resume. Or sometimes they just stay still. Floating and suspended. So breathe in. Let go. Let's begin from nothing."

Huh. Any luck yet?

2022 is turning out to be a good year for Lyle Lovett, not least because he is, to use a cowboy metaphor, back in the saddle.

"I've been out of work for two years," he says archly. Normally, Lovett performs more than 100 concerts a year, regardless of whether he's released new work. But the pandemic pinned him down at home in Houston, with his wife and their now–four-year-old twins, in the house his grandfather built in 1911. Domesticity suits Lovett. "There was plenty to do every minute of every day. Absolutely no boredom!" He sounds like he means it; unselfconscious mentions of paternal tenderness bubbled up in our conversation from time to time.

National pride is the damnedest thing. When I was growing up in the Netherlands, schoolchildren were taught that the inventor of the printing press was a Dutchman named Laurens Janszoon Coster. Germany's Johannes Gutenberg was waved away as an also-ran, if he was mentioned at all.