We were stunned to see Roger Skoff in the Ultralink/XLO room—we thought he'd retired years ago. "I did," he explained, "but I was asked to design some new stuff incorporating new technologies and more advanced versions of our existing designs."

But that's not the reason Roger is smiling. Last last night, he was notified by Ultralink/XLO vice-president Don Bouchard's family that he is showing signs of recovery from his recent motorcycle accident. Last night Bouchard partially regained consciousness and moved all of his limbs. We wanted to pass this along to his friends in the audio community.

And Bouchard would want us to mention the new Ultralink/XLO cable lines, the Reference 3 interconnects (3800/1m) and Signature 3 interconnects ($850/1m pair). They are braided designs with a new geometries, materials, and are "far, far better at reducing capacitive discharging artifacts," said Skoff.

We noticed new AC cables, too. "Let me let you in on a secret Skoff said, "AC cables either make no difference or they make a lot of difference. Guess what these do?