Jason Victor Serinus

When I entered room 1102, Greg Roberts of Volti Audio was in the midst of describing the Volti Audio 3-way Vittora system, complete with separate Extended Low Frequency cabinet ($25,000/five-piece set) that kicks in below 50Hz. In the familiar pairing with BorderPatrol Audio Electronics' S20 ESC + EXS dual-mono parallel 18Wpc SET amplifiers ($25,750/pair with new EXS power supply units), EXT1 triode line stage ($12,500), and USB DAC ($975); and Triode Wire Labs cabling, the system scored as another midrange winner . . . perhaps too much of a winner for some tastes, given that the exceptionally smooth midrange seemed to dominate the frequency extremes.

Anyone who thinks the high-end is on its last legs need only have passed the registration table for Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 20 minutes before the show officially opened. The lobby was mobbed, with the line literally going out the front door of the Marriott Denver Tech Center. Nor were these folks just from Colorado. On my first trip up the Tower elevator, I confirmed that my fellow passengers were audiophile visitors—not industry people—from Oregon and New Jersey.

Could it only be the 11th time the annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has welcomed thousands of audiophiles to Denver? The three-day gathering, which takes place Friday, October 10–Sunday, October 12 at its comfortable location, the Marriott Denver Tech Center, has become such an essential part of the international audio scene that it feels like it's been here forever.

It may be just a subway ride away from the biggest Apple, but to some inveterate Manhattanites, an audio show in Brooklyn sounds like it's from another planet. In reality, the third New York Audio Show, which opens to the public on Friday, September 26 at 2pm and continues through Sunday, September 28 at 5pm, takes place at the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, just a short distance across the East River from Manhattan.

Move over John, George, Ringo, and Paul. There's another remastering that's come on the scene, and it's every bit as important as the Beatles Mono Edition. It's Warner Classics' high-resolution, 24/96 digital remastering of soprano Maria Callas' entire studio-sourced discography. Consisting of arias, recitals and complete operas recorded 1949–1969, the remasterings reach the international public on September 22, and US music lovers on September 23. Their sound, whether in the 69-CD box set of her entire studio recordings, or HDtracks' 24/96 downloads of its individual components, is revelatory.

I've always considered the high end to be industrial art. People who favor a certain brand are saying, in a way, "I like that designer's interpretation. I like his or her art."—David Wilson

Last March, I had a rare experience akin to hearing the same recording through two different systems. I heard Andris Nelsons conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the same program—Haydn's Symphony 90, and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, followed by his Symphony 3—in two very different venues: UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and, 50 miles north, Sonoma State University's Weill Hall.

Snatching my prize for best sound on the third floor, the world premiere of the new Wells Audio Innamorata Signature amplifier ($13,000), enhanced by the new crystal technology in Jack Bybee's A/V Signal Enhancers ($119.95) and Bybee Technologies power cables ($1500), blew me away. Whoever expected, on Reference Recordings' new Kansas City Symphony recording of the suite from Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, such impeccably detailed, superbly controlled full-range sound in such a small room?