Mark Ward and I Give Shawn Murphy the "Album of the Year" Award at the L.A. & O.C. Audio Society GALA
was a fun event! Bernie Grundman got the Innovation Award
The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society holds its annual Gala the first Sunday of December at a Buena Park California hotel not far from Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland. Awards are handed out and there's a raffle held to benefit the Society, with tens of thousands of dollars worth of audio related prizes donated by manufacturers and retailers.
This year's prestigious Founder's Award went to Dave and Sheryl Lee Wilson, the couple that started Wilson Audio Specialties in a garage more than 50 years ago. Of course Dave passed away in 2018. Sheryl Lee and son Daryl who now runs the company attended. Six previous winners were there as well—the most ever, including Reference Recordings' Dr. Keith Johnson—and the Gala attendance set a record as well. The room was filled with audio luminaries including Daryl Wilson (and family), AudioQuest founder Bill Low, Chris Bellman, Fidelity Record Pressing's Rick Hashimoto, Kevin Gray, Tom Petty engineer/producer Ryan Ulyate, IMPEX Records' Abey Fonn, EveAnna Manley and many others.
Bernie Grundman received the Innovation Award and Zesto Audio's Carolyn Counnas presented Bernie the award since she and husband George initiated and sponsor the award. Bernie was on hand and spoke about his work.
The Absolute Sound's Editor Robert Harley delivered the opening Kenote address and talked about Dave and Sheryl Wilson's technical and business achievements. As usual I did the Founder's Award roast. And roast I did, though Dave is no longer with us. It was a tricky road to navigate but you can watch it in the video embedded below.
Last year I was given the responsibility to choose a 'record of the year" winner from among all of the year's releases. It's an impossible task but after a great deal of thought I picked the Yula Wang Shostakovich Piano Concerto album on DGG that Mark Ward raved about. I bought a copy and agreed it was musically and sonically spectacular and it was engineered by Shawn Murphy. After I made the pick the album was nominated for a Grammy so I know it was the right choice.
Shawn agreed to attend the Gala and pick up the award in person, so I enlisted Mark Ward to hand it to him. Mark will tell you he had a blast. We all did! And you can watch all or as much as you wish of the video below. It's been broken down by chapters so you can skip what you don't want to watch.
Shawn Murphy accepts the ARYA Award (Audiophile Record of the Year Award). L-R: Bob Levi, Mark Ward, Shawn Murphy, Michael Fremer
The raffle part is fun but I'm sure you have better things to do! I donated two copies of the new Caelan Cardello album Chapter One and Wilson Audio donated a pair of $10,000+ Tune Tots in a special color, which was the grand prize.
Everyone had a great time!
Photo credit: Harris Fogel
L-R: Society founder Bob Levi, LA&OC president Michael Wechsberg, me, Robert Harley, Sheryl Lee Wilson, Daryl Wilson (Photo credit: Harris Fogel)
Carolyn and George Counnas flanking Bernie Grundman (Photo credit: Harris Fogel)
L-R: Kevin Gray, Bernie Grundman, Abey Fonn, Chris Bellman, Ryan Ulyate (Photo credit: Harris Fogel)
