The March 19th meeting of The DC H-iFi Group found forty like-minded persons of the audiophile ilk traipsing from all over to the Alexandria, Va. location. This was the “CD is not Dead” meeting featuring the new Gold Note CD-1000 Mk II. I did not know that the CD dying was a thing. We have been giving away hundreds of CDs at every meeting from the Classical collection of about 12,000 CDs donated to the club. John Gatski still gives away a few special CDs at every meeting that he collects on his travels. CDs are everywhere.

Traffic was a nightmare for our journey down from Baltimore due to various events in the DMV area. It was a beautiful day and we all had too much fun getting together, having a bite to eat, beer/wine to drink and filling the room with lively discussions about our music systems and the state of the audio industry.

John let us know the plans for the club in the upcoming months with DCHFG Vinyl Extravaganza and DCHFG Party-At-The Beach/Overture Audio Tour in July. We are going to keep the Vinyl Nights and Bit Parade as well as visit the homes of various members and do a video record of their systems to be published on YouTube.

We had a report from Ken Wolf (SOTA Turntables) describing all the new products SOTA is bringing out this year. They will be at Axpona – Chicago in April. I will be travelling to Axpona and will be report.

Dave Raden explained the design of his fabulous interconnects and had a large assortment on hand for sale. I use a 15-foot pair between an LTA microZOTL preamp and my power amps (upgraded McGary SA-1e or VK Musik KT88 SET the TU-8800). Dave’s cables are made of pure silver with a shotgun design and floating shield with separate ground wire. I have not needed to ground my shield and they sound great. I saw a couple of members buy some so maybe we will get some feedback from others.

Russ Katz (The Vinyl Revivers) supplied the music system and ran the demonstration with a broad selection from his vast CD collection. This was an exceptionally clean and precise presentation of the music. The system consisted of:

• Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe Integrated Amp Current ($6299)
• Gold Note CD-1000 MK2 deluxe CD Player Current ($5800)
• ATC SCM-19 speakers Current ($4800 per pair)

A bunch of members won the raffle giveaways, concluding another fine Saturday doing what we like—Be merry with friends. See you next time.