Today, the 31st of December, is the last of 2015. At least in the western world. On Monday, February 8, the Chinese calendar is reset too.
We've had a great year at PS Audio and I will remember 2015 with great fondness. Our return to high end audio amplification with the launch of the BHK amplifiers–and soon a preamplifier as well as a new transport that plays SACDs into our DAC–were real highlights. So too, the launch of the NuWave DSD, which many have claimed is the best under $2K DAC in the world.
But it is with you, our friends and community that I most treasure. The sharing, the camaraderie, the sense of true community, of giving, of helping each other, that's what makes it all worthwhile.
I want to share a quick story with you that really warmed my heart.
A few months ago I received a note in my inbox from out of the blue. Happens all the time (I get a lot of email). The writer asked if he might bring his family to hear the IRSV in Music Room One. Only one problem, the only day they had available turned out to be the Friday after Thanksgiving - the company was closed. He wrote back and asked one more time. Is there any way to make an exception?
How could I say no?
After lunch and my traditional afternoon 20 minute snooze, promptly at 1:30 in the afternoon, I hauled my butt down to the shop and turned the lights and system on. The family arrived 30 minutes later. Mom, Dad, and five boys. Big ones, all Colorado natives. One was a firefighter, another, a musician, and there was a helicopter pilot, and a mechanic, the last, a farmer. And dad had run a metal fabrication shop for most of his life. Family business. Salt of the earth. All of them.
He brought his own CD. It was Mark Knopfler, and it wasn't one of Knopfler's best recordings–but they sat mesmerized and the father cried. He had heard Knopfler play this very song in concert and this was as close as he'd gotten since. He said this might even be better. One track. That's all they expected to hear and thanked me.
No, no, that won't do. And we stayed for another hour–mom and dad swapping the hot seat–sometimes applauding after the track, and smiles were many and wide.
That evening I sat next to the fire in our living room, though the warm glow I felt inside came not from the flames in the hearth.
Have a wonderful New Years holiday and an even better 2016.
From all of us at PS Audio to all of you.
