Finally, it snowed during the weekend of the show, on Saturday, which was disappointing. It meant I wasn’t in an alternate ‘verse of the multiverse after all and, consequently, I wasn’t Alternate Rob with a half-million-dollar hi-fi waiting at home.

On the good side, in my ‘verse, the Montreal Audiofest 2023 was a bonafide hit, in two ways in particular. First, there’s attendance, which was larger and more varied—many women and youngsters—than I remember ever seeing at the Montreal show. Organizer Sarah Tremblay remarked with incredulity that it was the first time the show has ever run out of admission bracelets.

Second, on average, the sound of the demoes was better than usual. I have no double-blind statistical evidence to support this claim, but I speculate that this was due to a combination of exhibitors paying more attention to room setup and audio gear sounding universally better.

Tidal-streaming was by far the method of choice for music playback. (Qobuz isn’t here yet, in Canada, though it’s launching in May.) I saw practically no CDs, very few LPs, not very many files stored locally, and forget about reel-to-reel; the only reel-to-reel I saw (but didn’t hear) was in the Nagra room. When it comes to music sources, streaming rules.

Another trend? Class-D is getting more popular—and better. It’s funny to think how just a few years ago class-D wasn’t even worth talking about. Now it seems poised to become ubiquitous. I asked one veteran tube-amp designer if he would ever consider building a transistor amp: “No, because solid-state amps can’t capture the soul of the music like a tube amp can,” he said. “But maybe one day class-D amps will be able to.”

So there you have it. Another show wrapped. Time for me to unwind, and I know exactly how I’m going to do it.

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