Blue LEDs are en vogue, everywhere and most of the time in vain. Jim Hagerman instead uses blue LEDs to make a setup strobe annex puck. And his tube equipment is not only well designed, it is well priced as well – which is to say, affordable. And you can build it yourself if you like. His electronics played with Azzolina horns to good effect.

More Azzolinas were next door with a Galibier turntable. Good music, good sound - what more could one want?

Tri makes amplifiers, Acoustic Zen makes speakers and cables. Together with a Sony CDP, they made music. So simple, so nice.

If you want a wall of sound and have the room for it, Analysis Audio’s Amphitryon could be something for you - detail galore and a soundstage a mile wide and high. The Rodger Russel speakers in one of the McIntosh rooms were just as tall but far slimmer. Using endlessly paralleled drivers and making a coherent line-source sound isn’t guaranteed yet here it happened.

AudioKinesis? We had never heard of the brand but it was a pleasant finish for the first day to finally drop in with Duke LeJeune. This is a very relaxed and amiable man from Indiana. Look at his setup. Two of his Jazz Modules loudspeaker, toed in severely. A $199 CD spinner, a NuForce preamp and a triode power amp. Some ribbon cables and a power filter rounded it up. Here we played some serious music from our CD (which we lost instantly to Duke but we came prepared!). With $4000 for the -- watch out, they're big -- Jazz Modules, they are a musical bargain. This is what makes audio and RMAF so such fun..