"I thought the sound I heard there as magically “right” as any I have heard at any show. I forgot to listen to the sound and listened to the music.  A joy." HP’s Workshop – April/May 2010 Harry Pearson – THE Show, Las Vegas 2010

The last full stop? At John McDonald's demonstration of much (but hardly all) of his developing line of Audience gear. Indeed, the only element in the room that wasn't his was a Denon 3930 CD player ("heavily modified," he said). Back in 2007, McDonald had, to my way of thinking, some of the most natural sound I heard at T.H.E. Show (along with Keith Herron with his still unproduced reference speaker). Since then, his most ambitious power conditioner (the aR12-T) has become of reference standard of sorts; and, he has since been at work on updating his speaker systems and a soon-to-come preamplifier. The amps he used at T.H.E. were Class D (of all things) prototypes. The speakers he had going when I arrived were the ClairAudient LSA 4+4 "bi-poles", his term--LSA stands for line source array-- priced at circa $12,000. I used the "Mercury" and "Saturn" cuts from The Planets, and for the organ pedal points in Saturn asked him to turn on his new subwoofers (two Audience 8-inch woofer "bipoles" and two ten inch passive radiators, also bipole in operation). I thought the sound I heard there as magically "right" as any I have heard at any show. I forgot to listen to the sound and listened to the music. A joy. (And if you correctly assume I will be reviewing this system, consider these remarks, as is so often the case with me, a tease.)