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Bel Canto showed its new components including the Ref 500 monos.

Blumenhofer Acoustics I had first encountered in Milan. Its Andrea Vitali reminded me by e-mail before knowing I'd been to Guangzhou: "In the last few years, we revamped our product line and had to change the name of the company due to the end of a cooperation. Our focus now is on high-efficiency speakers and you can see it in the Genuin series which we would like to introduce to the market. In Milano you told me that you moved to Switzerland. Our company is situated not far from Switzerland and therefore it would not be a big problem to deliver to you some review samples nearly anytime personally. To anticipate, you will meet our brand again in Las Vegas at the CES in January, probably in 2 booths: Hudson Audio Import and Amari turntables. Both of them will present the same speaker you saw in Guangzhou, Hudson Audio as our importer for the US, Amari to play his turntables. We will not be personally present. Then we are going to present the top of our brand at the Munich High End in May. It is going to be a 3-way speaker based on a horn driven by a compression driver (we still don't know if it is going to be the TAD or our own driver), the TAD 38cm unit for the midrange and a 21" woofer. We are finalizing the development now and it is very promising." I did commit to review something from the Blumenhofer catalogue in the new year but what exactly remains to be worked out. As you can see, the company also makes electronics. Of the valved kind.

Boulder Amplifiers teamed with Wilson Audio for an all-American show of strength.

Bryston from Canada wasn't just on static display but powered some humongous PMC speakers in a cavernous room - and yes, that's two hyperbolic words but as you'll see later in the British speaker company's slot, fully factual.

Burmester from Germany has the cosmetic bling factor that's de rigeur for upscale China and Hong Kong sales.

Calix horns from Taiwan played in one of the Audio Space exhibit.

Cambridge Audio also makes speakers which I didn't know before.

Canton from Germany had a large static display and I simply snapped this portion not crowded by attendees at that very moment. If that suggests this show was busy, US and Euro shows would kill for such attendance.

Carat's super-clean looks suggest Scandinavian but the company is actually headquartered in Champigny, France.

Cayin/Spark showed with the big B&Ws as though to deliberately squash impolite notions of emasculated valve drive. Twin 845s per channel will do that nicely.

One of the most copied valve amp cosmetics in Guangzhou was Luxman's year 2004 integrated. And, of course, there's really only so many ways you can design a valve amp, making it more and more difficult to author something truly original. Above the covers. Underneath the sheets, plenty of room remains as the Thorens valve kit proves.