SSI 2010

For a journalist at a trade show, few things are more awkward than entering a room and finding that the exhibitor and his staff are the only people there: No dealers. No customers. Just a few desperate souls ready to pin their last half-hope on a man with a badge—and the badge says Press.

One of my favorite moments of SSI 2010 came during Saturday afternoon's outstanding "Ask">http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2010/roast_the_editors/">Ask the Editors" session, when a member of the audience asked the panel about audio nirvana. What components or systems, if any, had helped us achieve that elusive, mythical state when everything is perfect and right? I sat up straight in my seat and buried my fingernails into the palms of my hands, anxious to offer a response. When my turn to answer came, I stuttered, overwhelmed by the moment, but I think I said enough to communicate the idea that audio nirvana is a fleeting target, one that depends more on the listener's mood and ability to be moved and less on the system or individual components within any particular system.

The lovely (as you can see) and talented (as anyone who heard her sing and play the flute at the SSI 2010 Give">http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2010/oh_caroline/">Give Band concerts can attest) Caroline St-Louis helped out at the show ticket desk. Here she is with her favorite audio magazine.

Take a dCS Scarlatti digital front end ($68,000), combine it with a pair of Nagra VPA tube amplifiers ($20,000/pair, pictured), and a pair of the new Verity Audio Amadis loudspeakers ($29,995) and you'll have a pretty good-sounding system, right?

Son-or-Filtronique was celebrating its 41st year of being in business at SSI and the retailer's larger room featured Verity Sarasto Mk.2 speakers driven by Audio Research Reference 210 tube monoblocks—love those green power meters—and the relatively new Audio Research Reference Five preamplifier. Source was the fully-loaded, four-box dCS Scarlatti SACD/CD player that Michael">http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/dcs_scarlatti_sacdcd_playback_s… Fremer reviewed last August. (My apologies S-or-F, but I didn't note the cables being used.) This was the last room I visited at SSI and all my notes said was "Wow!" So that's all I have to say here.

The affordable Monitor Audio Silver RS6 has been a long-term recommended loudspeaker at this magazine since Bob">http://stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/306monitor/">Bob Reina reviewed it in March 2006. The English manufacturer recently replaced its "S" series with "X" models, which feature revised drive-units, better internal bracing, and lacquer finishes. The benefits of the changes are said to be better low-frequency definition and deeper bass extension. Being demmed at SSI was not the replacement for the RS6 but the larger Silver RX8 ($1750/pair in standard finsih, $2000/pair in black or white gloss). With the RX8s driven by a Simaudio Supernova CD player and a Yamaha RXZ-7 receiver, Dave Brubeck's classic "Take Five" did indeed sound fine, with a soundstage that floated free of the speakers themselves and weighty but well-defined lows.

The Stereophile Ask the Editors session at Shows—in which John Atkinson (left), Art Dudley (center), Stephen Mejias, and I fielded questions from the audience at SSI—in something that I enjoy a lot, and so, I know, do JA, AD, and SM. Through the years, I've learned that it's almost impossible to anticipate what the questions will deal with. And that was certainly true this time. The questions covered a wide range of topics: why are there so few active speakers on the market; why doesn't Stereophile review more vintage equipment; what system that we've heard (at the show or elsewhere) represents to us audiophile nirvana; music recorded in what format will be reproducible a thousand years from now; why is the interest in high quality audio less popular now than it was a few decades ago; has loudspeaker quality improved through the years; and many more. All thoughtful, interesting questions.