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Sunday, March 11, Time TBA: Classic Album Sundays, Colleen Murphy’s popular UK event, makes its US debut at the new Bellwether venue (594 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn).

With Classic Album Sundays, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy shares her passions for great music and high-quality sound, inviting guests to listen to an entire record, from beginning to end, on vinyl.

As one of the Top Five KEF dealers in the United States, AudioVision San Francisco was chosen as the site for the country's first in-store demo of KEF's Blade ($30,000/pair) on January 19. Given that the Blade's previous three quasi-public demos were either at shows—CEDIA 2011, where the environment was reportedly too noisy for anyone to get a good listen, and RMAF 2011, where the room was too small—or KEF's 50th Anniversary Party in the British Embassy in New York City, this was actually the first time that anyone on the West Coast, or any bloke who happened to wander in off the street, had a chance to hear KEF's long-awaited speaker in more supportive surroundings.

Doing the honors for KEF was April Sanders, the company's Western Regional Manager (top photo). Sanders' 30 years experience in the speaker industry makes her one of the longest-surviving women in the high-end—a feat that, IMHO, deserves at the least a medal of honor and epaulettes covered with brass stars and other emblems of bravery on the front lines.

Photo: Andy Henriques, CAS

The same weekend John Atkinson was serenading the Los Angeles/Orange County Audio Society, John Marks was showing the flag in Southern New England at the annual Holiday Meeting of the Connecticut Audio Society. JM brought with him to Connecticut not only Sooloos' Control:15 music server, into which he had loaded the playlist for his presentation, but also a Bricasti M1 DAC and Nordost Silver Shadow S/PDIF cable and Bricasti's Brian Zolner to answer questions about his M1 DAC. (JA's full review of the Bricasti will appear in the February 2012 issue of Stereophile, with a Follow-Up by JM in the March issue.)