Los Angeles. City of angels. The Sweetwater Sound NAMM crew descended on it Wednesday morning to find crystal clear skies and cool temperatures. Coming from Fort Wayne in January we were quite content with the day's high of 62 degrees. Heck, for us it was balmy.

Given our track record, this trip was relatively uneventful. The fun began as soon as we touched down in LAX. We were swiftly taken away in a limo to the big JBL open house at their factory. From there it was one open house or party after another. The entire long weekend was absolutely jammed with events we needed to attend. Coming up for air long enough to just grab a hotdog for lunch was sometimes a challenge. For some people these trade shows are just a big excuse to party. For us it's more like rigorous work. We want to be sure we are on top of our game and bringing the latest and greatest tools to our customers at the best possible prices.

As is always the case it must be pointed out that this NAMM show report is by no means a complete reference of everything going on at the show. It is way too big to cover in its entirety. We're bringing you what we felt were some of the highlights and important points. For those who are interested, some of what gets covered here is a function of who grabs us and gets our attention with something new. The new part is important. There is a trend at these shows of manufacturers "debuting" the same product they "debuted" at the last AES or NAMM show. If we've seen it before it is already on one of our other reports. No need to rehash it here as these reports are reserved for announcements that are new, or at least new to us. We must also remind the reader that because these products are new the details about them are still changing. Specifications, pricing, features, and availability dates will no doubt be updated in the next few weeks or months as some of these new products get closer to being released. All prices given are retail. Actual street prices will obviously be lower in many cases.

While this is our official NAMM report some of you are hopefully aware that we began reporting on new developments in last week's inSync. Most notable was our exclusive first look at the new Roland digital mixing system. Where applicable we will reference those reports as well.

Lets get on with the show.