One of our HiFi Family members, Joe, wrote me this long and wonderful email about Maestro, the music program I built. Yes, it's wonderfully complimentary but, more importantly, it speaks to the heart of everything we have worked towards for the past 50 years.

"I’ve spent decades trying to get closer to what I hear when music simply
feels real. Along the way I’ve assembled two very different systems for
very different purposes—a serious Totaldac system and a much simpler system
built around a Naim Mu-so 2.

I’ve always assumed there would be another step. Another improvement.
Something else that might get me a little closer.

Maestro has challenged that assumption.

I keep using words like more natural, three-dimensional, open, and
involving, but I’m beginning to think those descriptions miss the larger
point. Something seems to have disappeared between the recording and me.
Music I’ve known for years is being rediscovered rather than merely
sounding different.

And remarkably, I’m experiencing that through both systems I already own.

Something else has become apparent as I’ve continued listening. I’m
routinely listening 10–20 dB lower than I used to, yet I’m more engaged by
the presentation, not less. That may be part of why familiar recordings
seem so different to me. I’m also finding myself wanting to hear music I
would ordinarily pass over. Miles Davis was a perfect example today. Music
that previously didn’t pull me in suddenly did.

That, more than another audiophile adjective, may tell you what has changed.

It has caused me to confront a question I suspect anyone who loves audio
eventually has to answer: When is good, good enough?

I think I finally know my answer.

It’s when I stop wondering what I need to change next.

For the first time in quite a while, my desire to pursue another
significant system upgrade is simply gone. Not because I believe nothing
could sound better. Of course something always can. But “better” has
stopped being the question.

I’m satisfied.

That is an unusual word for someone who has spent much of his life pursuing
better sound. I jokingly call myself an audioholic rather than an
audiophile, and unlike some people in this hobby, I certainly don’t have an
unlimited budget. So discovering that what I was searching for may already
have been sitting in front of me—in two systems I already owned—is no small
thing.

Maestro didn’t make me want a better system. It made me rediscover the
systems I already have.

There is an irony, of course. Having found what feels very much like the
missing link for me, I’m now anxious for Maestro itself to become complete.
Get the remaining playback and queue issues behind us and eventually give
me the mobile access that allows the computer to disappear from the
experience, and I think the circle closes.

The technology gets out of the way.

And I’m left with what I was after in the first place: the music."

I don't think anyone has ever said it better. Thank you.