Ping Gong, AAA Audio's energetic director, shyly told me he had brought "something special" to the show. Knowing AAA's penchant for high-value, low-cost hi-fi, I expected something modest, but impressive. What he had brought was just flat-out impressive.

The $25,000/pair M-2000 Self-Analyzing Balanced mono power amplifiers are built like (fashionably luxurious) tanks and output 600W into 8 ohms. They weigh in at 170 lbs each. "They have an S/N Ratio of greater than 110dB," Gong confessed, "so they are very quiet."

Lord, yes, when Gong played Rutter's Requiem through Dynaudio Confidence C-4s, the noise floor seemed staggeringly low, and when the organ's pedal tones started to swell under the chorus, he actually started to apologize for the sounds coming from the neighboring Earthquake room. But no, the sounds were all coming from his system—and they were physically convincing. I felt the music the way you feel it sitting stage-side at a jazz club, something very few systems reproduce at all well.

AAA? I should say so!