Rogers—Totem—Bel Canto—Well Tempered—Kimber  “These blood-red
eyes don’t see so good / But what’s worse is, if they could /
Would I change my ways?”  So sings Dan Auerbach on “These Days,”
the closing track from the Black Keys’ excellent 2010 album,
Brothers. As Auerbach sings, achingly, slide guitar weeps, bells
chime, bass guitar thumps along woefully, cymbals splash, and
floor toms rumble. It’s a beautiful few moments of R&B-inspired
pop music, flooded with heartache.  I’ve never heard it sound as
good—dynamic, detailed, present, and powerful—as it sounded
yesterday, through Totem Wind Design loudspeakers driven by a
Rogers High Fidelity EHF-200 integrated amplifier (in fat,
forward ultralinear mode), with a Bel Canto front end (e.One
DAC3.5VB and CD3 transport) and Kimber BiFocal XL speaker cables
and Hero interconnects.  Sounding equally captivating was the
Well Tempered Amadeus turntable, spinning “Angels” from the XX’s
new album, Coexist, the system communicating every drop of truth
and longing in Romy