Jason Victor Serinus

A funny thing happened at the symphony the other night. A concert by the great Berlin Philharmonic sounded like lousy hi-fi.

Two highly respected product lines, one founded 32 years ago, and another whose pedigree dates from 1932, have returned to the North American market. <A HREF="http://www.ta-hifi.com">Theory & Application Elektroakustic</A> (T+A) products, from Germany, has returned to the US and Canada thanks to Dynaudio North America, and the venerable line of <A HREF="http://www.wharfedale.co.uk">Wharfedale loudspeakers</A> will once again reach the US from the UK, thanks to the dedication of Sound Import, LLC, of Hopedale, Massachusetts.

The long-awaited US launch of <A HREF="http://www.passionato.com">Passionato.com</A&gt;, intended as the World Wide Web's "premier destination for classical music connoisseurs," has finally happened. Passionato, which has no membership fee, offers the largest collection of classical-music downloads in CD-quality, DRM-free FLAC and 320kbps MP3 formats yet assembled online.

The 23rd <A HREF="http://www.salonsonimage.com">Salon Son & Image</A> high-fidelity show, cosponsored by <I>Stereophile</I>, takes place in Montreal's Hilton Bonaventure March 26&#150;28. (An additional day, March 25, is reserved for the trade and press.) With 10,000 to 12,000 attendees expected, including a sizable American contingent and several thousand Canadians from outside Quebec province, who will take advantage of bilingual presentations and literature and the anticipated absence of snow, SSI remains the largest North America audio show that is open to the public.

BluePort Jazz's catalog of 15 titles, recorded in jazz clubs and studios by Jim Merod, is now downloadable in lossless FLAC format from the <A HREF="http://www.houseoflinn.com">House of Linn website</A>. Merod&#151;a PhD professor, an author of numerous books, a music critic for <I>Enjoy the Music.com</I>, and an equipment reviewer for <I>Positive Feedback Online</I>&#151;is known for recording with as few microphones as possible and mixing everything live to two tracks in high-resolution (24-bit/96kHz) PCM format.

Did Koetsu USA's room have the best sound at the show? It's hard to tell. Since my goal was to cover every single room at Axpona without playing slam, bam, thank you ma'am, I intentionally skipped set-ups John intended to cover. Those included some of the big players: YG Acoustics/Krell, Acapella/Einstein, the huge Legacy speakers, Belles/Advanced, and Mark Waldrep's huge, powerful AIX surround set-up with its five Thiel CS3.7s, two Thiel subs, four or more Boulder amps, DH Labs cabling, and Oppo player. Unfortunately, I also skipped the Ayon Audio exhibit, which I thought John was covering because it shared a room with Legacy.

I almost missed the Nightingale display. The first time I tried to enter the room, there were so many people involved in post-listening conversation that I skipped it. Happily, the Axpona organizers alerted me to my omission, enabling me to leave the show on a high note. And once I took a listen, I understood why people were spending so much time discussing what they heard.