Bob, let's rewind the temporal tape past the last 60 days that you've been in operation here. Tell us about your background, both professional and where and how it relates to audio.
		Just prior to opening Avantgarde Music & CInema, I worked at Intel. For about two year, I ran the sales-channels group for the communications product division. Before that, I was at Dialogic which would eventually be acquired by Intel. Before Dialogic, I spent 16 years at Intergraph Corporation in Alabama, first in various sales & marketing positions in the field, then as district and regional manager, finally in the Corporate headquarters in Huntsville for the last 10 years. Throughout that entire time in the computer industry, I was also an avid audiophile. I worked my way pretty much through everything - from planars and electrostatic to dynamic speakers and tube and solid state amplification. You name it, I had it. There were Watt/Puppies, Quad/Entecs, Apogee Divas, Magnepans, Genesis, Martin-Logans and SoundLabs. You see, this was my hobby. I traveled extensively around the world and enjoyed audio wherever I found it and then back home. That, and cars and golf. Those are my three addictions. (Giggles). I tinker with golf clubs as much as I tinker with cables. So I did that routine for about 25 years and pretty much went back and forth between all kinds of equipment.
		Looking back, does anything in particular there stand out - a particular system, a particular component that you remember with fondness, nearly wishing in hindsight you hadn't moved on?
		Yeah, Apogee Divas. Driven by four VTL 300s and a DAX active crossover, they produced this giant soundwave that I really enjoyed and still remember. The first time I heard Martin-Logan Monoliths -- they were the first electrostats I ever owned -- I was already playing with the VTLs. I remember stepping behind the Monoliths to see whether there were people back there. It was so spooky. I'd had Magnepans and Vandersteens before. I owned Vandy 2cs for a short period of time and then went on to Magneplanars and Martin-Logans to become quite entranced by all kinds of planars and electrostatics. From there, I progressed to the Apogees Divas which I loved. But, they also created that big wall of panels in my room. Now I acquired the very first Wilson Watt monitors before the Puppies were ever released. With these first Wilsons, I used Entec LF30 subs. That was a fascinating sound! For years following, I'd go back and forth between small dynamic speakers like the Wilsons -- I played with various iterations of the Watts and then the Witt because I was always fascinated by what they did -- and planars. You name it, I probably had three or four different sets of Martin-Logans, a couple of sets of Apogees. And I was enjoying all of this gear sampling for music. But I used it as a laboratory, too. Earlier in my career, I was a researcher at an institute in Columbus/Ohio encroached in electro-chemicals. That is a totally different kind of science where I learned to test all manner of things under all sorts of variables. I took that knowledge and experience garnered in the lab and began applying it to my audio systems both for the enjoyment of music -- I love music, I play the piano and of course grew up in the 60s and 70s around great music -- and to employ it as my laboratory, to play with the differences you can achieve changing seemingly little insignificant things. Different vinyl, cartridges, VTA adjustments, the whole lot. Then on to CDs, all the different absorption, sound enhancement and treatment products. I distinctly recall the first Harmonix tuning products. Treating speakers with those little dots. I was fascinated by that. They were similar to certain things in the labs I knew to work. So that was my audiophile life. I did that for years. Then about three years ago -- through my regular journey both literally and practically; I was traveling a lot for work -- I stumbled upon a pair of DUOs. I just turned 50 in May of this year. Maybe my high-frequency hearing is not what it used to be when I was 25 or 30. Whatever. So, all of a sudden, I listen to these hornspeakers and the whole high end was just there. Not too prominent, not too subdued, just precise yet relaxed, resolved yet organic. I no longer wondered whether I was hearing everything - you know, the whole extended range of the speakers and software. I knew within 15 seconds that this was the speaker for me.
		Where did you hear 'em?
							At John Rocke's, a dealer in New Jersey. I actually had a large system at the time that I needed to sell. While I heard the DUOs at John's first, I finally bought them from somebody else who could take all the other stuff in trade. I brought them home and set 'em up figuring that by now, I had a lot of experience setting up speakers. Fastforwarding now to hearing Jim Smith's system and looking back at what I had at the time, I wasn't even close! I listened to them for probably a year, 1½ years with first the Cary 2A3 monos that were part of the initial purchase package, then the Viva Sintesi as an integrated with Resolution Audio and Sony SACD-1 players.
		But then my life changed. I was moving. I was going to be in temporary housing for about 6 months. I didn't want to store the equipment. I knew somebody who just so happened to want to buy my speakers. So I sold the whole lot but hung on to the Viva. At the time I had so many things going on that I don't believe I appreciated how much I really enjoyed the music through the DUOs. 6 months later, I settled into a new living situation. Time to wear hunter's green and chase speakers again. This time, I methodically surveyed the whole market. I had enjoyed the experience with the Avantgardes so much that I was actually looking for the next step. I anticipated a step that would create as much of a quantum leap as the last time I had settled down with the DUOs. So now I looked at everything, leaving no stone unturned, no transducer silent.
		All of that here in New York?
		(Vehemently shakes his head.) No, everywhere. All across the country during my extensive work-related business travels. I had always done that. Consequently, I enjoyed a pretty good purview of the status quo, of what was available where. I knew the whole audio marketplace, intimately - shows, stores, even people's private systems in those homes that had invited me throughout the years. I again looked at all the planars, Lowther single-driver design and other exotic stuff. After about 3 months I realized -- just for me personally because I had heard a lot of truly excellent speakers during this period -- that I had chanced across nothing that took me anywhere near to what I was used to enjoying music with. In fact, all it did is take me farther away from it. You can see what's coming. I went back and bought the identical pair of DUOs, again. I owned pearlescent whites ones the first time around, now I purchased metallic green. The gipsy in me went crazy. I bought a louder color. (Laughs.) And that was it!
		Now were' talking what, about 3 years ago?
		No, about 1.5 years. So I set them up, had the Viva and was playing the SACD-1 through it and really loved every minute of it. I had them set up similarly to my first room -- naturally sounding a bit different because of a new room -- but I had them set up pretty well. Or so I thought. Now an inflection point occured when I went to the Stereophile Show here at the New York Hilton about 9 months ago. I went primarily to see and hear the Lowther-based Rhethm speakers I was curious about. I walked the show and heard everything there was to hear over a couple of days. And Jim did not have Avantgarde there. For whatever reason, he had been there before but wasn't present this time.
		Maybe had I seen Avantgarde at this show, you and I wouldn't be sitting here right now. Because the line would have been represented - New York is very tight in that regard. I would have learned a few useful things, perhaps, then simply gone home and played my music. But because they weren't there, I left the show with a lightbulb going off. Just to and for myself, I thought: "If I had my personal DUOs and Viva integrated at that show, in a little room just like everybody else, even in half the standard size room, I'd have people lined up to get in and enjoy their favorite tunes!" They were there, these people, looking for music, searching for music the way I was already listening to it at home. I just knew this in my gut. And I honestly thought that what I owned blew away everything I had heard at the show. Simultaneously, I was still working at Intel in the communications department. Everybody knows about the telecommunications businesss. What happened to it over the last couple of years is essentially a nightmare. I had a large group under me that, basically, was being decimated notch by notch and head by head from one week to the next. Even I was in a potential career transition. It could have entailed relocation to Oregon. So I was beginning to look at different options, outside this beleagured industry. This was my career. I still believed I would somehow continue it. At the same time though, my hobby surfaced, strongly. With that lightbulb coming on, I picked up the phone and called Jim Smith in Atlanta. I had never personally met him though we certainly had exchanged a fair amount of e-mails and calls over the years for technical advice. So I called Jim to ask why Avantgarde wasn't at the show.