Robert Schryer

Another great-sounding room was the one hosted by retailer Vinyl Sound, a name that, as proprietor of the store, you have to live up to—you have to sell turntables!

Ontario retailer Hearken Audio always showcases systems made up of exotic products usually from distant lands by brands unfamiliar to me that, together, don't fail to be musical standouts at shows.

You know how they say that after a while dog owners start looking like their pets? I doubt it's true, but on the premise that it is, I wonder if the same can be claimed about brand names or store names; example: if you opened the "Best Gear Ever " store, would you, even subconsciously, feel compelled to seek out and sell the best gear? Would you try to resemble the name, to live up to it?

You want big-toned, vivid, seemingly effortlessly dispersed sound with a knack for delivering some of the most stable and incisively air-sculpted, but not fatiguing, imaging I've heard at the show?

This was one of my favorite demos at the show. It sounded so well balanced, it seemed to deliver everything in the right proportions. Bold but not in-your-face; tonally ripe but not too warm; detailed but not stringent; effortless but weighty, and so on.

The Marantz product that was under press embargo? A speaker! Actually, two speakers: the Marantz Horizon and its larger sibling, Marantz Grand Horizon. The speakers are intended for single-speaker wireless playback.

Some systems are sleepers in the unassuming sense. They don't come in big parts, or take up a lot of space, or use a dozen components to pass the signal through. So you sit down to listen to them, expecting something good but forgettable, and boom!