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One year after the Consumer Electronics Show switched venues from the Alexis Park to The Venetian/Sands Expo and Convention Center, leaving "renegade" exhibitors at T.H.E. Show's less costly St. Tropez venue isolated from the rest of the action, both shows are back stronger than ever. CES's "high-performance audio" exhibits in the Venetian's Tower Suites have increased to 173 from 122, while T.H.E. Show has expanded to a total of 90 exhibit rooms in the Alexis Park and the St. Tropez.

The 2011 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, which runs October 14–16 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, promises more exhibits than ever before. With 480 exhibitors spread over 176 hotel rooms and three vendor areas, and advance attendance figures indicating at least 3500 attendees, the show continues to attract even more of the industry and public despite the economic slowdown. While the proportion of East and West Coast attendees remains stable, you'll see more international attendees, including folks from Thailand, India, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Singapore, Brazil, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Mexico, and the UK.

"The big news is that we've scheduled a special exhibit at the Hyatt down the block," show organizer Marjorie Baumert told Stereophile. "We've expanded because Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds and Analogue Productions has put together a preview presentation of the new 5.1 surround sound SACD of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, running all three days, and played through the same Acoustic Transducer Company (ATC) loudspeakers that were used to mix the project.

A highlight of recent Home Entertainment Shows has been the Sunday afternoon "Analog Clinic" presented by Stereophile senior editor Michael Fremer. Michael, who writes about vinyl playback every month in his "Analog Corner" column, spends an hour showing Show attendees how to set up a turntable and how to optimize the tonearm geometry. To judge by the attendance at Home Entertainment 2006, held last month in Los Angeles, this is a popular subject these days.

The music industry's traditional packaged-goods retail business may be continuing its long decline, but the sale of downloadable tunes is hot and getting hotter.

2L, the Norwegian label that made audiophile history in 2006 when one their early high-resolution SACDs, Immortal NYSTEDT, received Grammy Award nominations for "Best Surround Sound Album" and "Best Choral Performance," has taken a big step back to the future. After releasing a number of recordings packages that feature both hybrid SACD and hi-resolution Blu-ray discs, as well as making their DXD (352.8kHz/24-bit) recordings available for download, 2L has just ventured into the black hole known as vinyl.

On Friday, September 27, Apple Corps, Ltd./Capitol/UMe will release, in various analog and digital formats, a remixed and remastered version of the Beatles' Abbey Road, commissioned in honor of that album's 50th anniversary. And on Saturday, September 28, between 3:00pm and 6:00pm—local times—over 40 perfectionist-audio retailers across the US and Canada, coast to coast, will mark the event by playing all 17 of the album's tracks, presumably on the finest imaginable playback systems. (It is a not-unreasonable expectation that at least some of these many playback sessions will take place at the same time, thus stimulating a great harmonic convergence. Or something.)

iTunes is proving every day that some music fans love to procure music through the Internet. On the other hand, audiophiles often complainhttp://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?310">complain; about the poor sound of the "CD quality" compressed files that Apple and others offer for download at similar prices to those of their uncompressed CD counterparts.