Jason Victor Serinus

On July 17, industry veterans Richard Schram, founder of Parasound, and John Curl, the company's legendary circuit designer (above), made a rare joint appearance at Century Stereo in San Jose, CA. Surviving unexpectedly horrendous freeway traffic, which made for a late start—perfect for this writer, who made the same commute—the two men's great spirits contributed to an evening as entertaining as it was informative.

Extreme, perhaps, in size—6'10" when fully extended—and certainly in price ($260,000/pair US price), the Estelon Extreme loudspeaker has arrived at its exclusive US dealer, Audio High in Mountain View and Los Angeles, CA. The brainchild of Estonian designer Alfred Vassilkov, 56, who describes it as the culmination of 30 years of research, each loudspeaker, pictured above with Audio High's Michael Silver, weighs 551.16 lbs (250kg).

Stephen Mejias, formerly of Stereophile, now VP of Communications at AudioQuest, performed a most convincing cable comparison using the company's top-of-the-line AudioQuest Diamond Ethernet cable ($695 for 0.75m, $1195 for 1.5m). In a system whose JRiver-equipped MacBook Pro fed CD-quality files to an Audio Research Reference DAC, Audio Research Reference 75 amplifier, and Vandersteen Treos outfitted with a double bi-wire pair of AQ WEL Signature cabling, Roy Orbison's "Crying" sounded one-dimensionally flat and a little bright on top via a generic Ethernet cable. When Stephen switched to the AQ Diamond Ethernet cable, voice and instruments suddenly and dramatically acquired depth, air, dimensionality, and subtlety.