Not a lot of visual noise going on here.

Greenwich can be lovely: it's quiet. The houses are huge. The lawns come in lush expanses rather than pots or postage stamps. But it's too quiet for some, or at least Dinesh Paliwal wanted a richer soundscape than what the tony suburb had to offer.

Mr. Paliwal, the president and CEO of audio systems giant Harman International, has purchased a two-bedroom, 2.5-bath apartment at the Plaza, according to city records. He and wife Ila are either picking up a new pied-a-terre or getting the hell out of the suburbs altogether.

Mr. Paliwal is, after all, at the helm of a company that specializes in noise.

The couple picked up their 14-floor condo for $8.5 million, a pretty nice price reduction considering that it was most recently listed at $9.5 million with Prudential Douglas Elliman brokers Jason Walker and Harry DiOrio. It was originally asking $9.9 million when it hit the market in December. We suppose that not even "sumptuously appointed tiled baths" or "amazing direct views of Central Park South" were enough to persuade the Paliwals to pay a little more? And we guess they were unswayed by the fact that the apartment came fully wired with high-tech lighting, sound and video.

Seller Ann-Kathrin Linsenhoff took a significant loss on the apartment—she paid $9.7 for it back in 2007. But Ms. Linsenhoff, an Olympic champion who won the gold medal in team dressage for Germany in 1988, apparently thought it was the right time to ride away. If a lifetime spent on the competitive horseback riding circuit doesn't teach a person to accept defeat with grace (and to have enviable posture), we're not sure what could.

Besides, Ms. Linsenhoff is undoubtedly off to greener pastures. You know, Central Park's bridle path is not what it once was.

kvelsey@observer.com

It was, apparently, time to move on. And Mr. Levy, no stranger to the winds of change, did not cling to his one-bedroom, 1.5-bath condo with its original marble mosaic patterned floors. That would be like clutching a case of CDs—or worse yet, cassette tapes—to one's chest and pretending that the future was not here.

The man who once ruled the music business bought the apartment in 2008, shorty after he left EMI when things, well, mostly profits, were going downhill for the music industry. Fortunately, his severance package of some 7 million pounds more than financed the $6.2 million purchase.

The views from the apartment are pretty spectacular, but the price seems a little steep for a one-bedroom. It's the Plaza, so there are, of course, amenities and perks galore, but still... Perhaps that's why the listing, held by Corcoran's Deborah Grubman and David Dubin, didn't sell for the full $6.7 million ask?

Why did Mr. Levy want to leave? We haven't heard him making any startling pronouncements about the Plaza (he once said “The CD as it is right now is dead”—and that was when he was still CEO of EMI), so maybe he was just looking to spend more time back on the Continent?

The apartment's buyer, listed as Core Estates LLC, shall remain anonymous for now. Perhaps it's one of the artists who worked under Mr. Levy? More likely, a press shy banker.

kvelsey@observer.com