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When the person on the street hears the term "high-end audio," they usually think of fancy, feature-laden systems that cost more than most houses. The unfortunate phrase evokes images of a lavish lifestyle replete with expansive Manhattan apartments and rolling country estates.

Although one of the most innovative firms in the audio electronics field, the David Berning Company seems determined to keep as low a profile as possible. The company advertises little, does not actively seek out new dealers, and seems content to let potential customers seek it out, as though to say "Okay, here's my product, take it or leave it." Thus, even though both Stereophile and The Absolute Sound, in a rare outbreak of agreement, a couple of years ago declared Berning's TF-10 to be one of the best preamplifiers available, most serious audiophiles are still unaware of the Berning Company's existence. Perhaps the EA-2100 will change that.

The only thing that excites me as much as finding an excitable new affordable component (which I define as below $1000, and the lower the better) is a new "trickle-down" design from a cutting-edge designer. Thankfully, such new "real-world" products are becoming more commonplace in the High End. The process begins when a talented high-end designer releases an expensive, cutting-edge product that is hailed by the audiophile press as a breakthrough, a new "reference."

Among the electrically connected, the phrase short circuit induces panic and horrific images of tripped breakers, blown fuses, acrid blue smoke, and melted circuit boards. Nonetheless, near short circuits are becoming popular among the analog set. Moving-coil cartridges of an inductance and impedance so low they're nearly short circuits are now more common, thanks to powerful neodymium magnets that help produce more and more electrical output from fewer and fewer turns of coil wire. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is the Haniwa HCTR01 Mk.II cartridge, which has an internal impedance of 0.4 ohm and an inductance of 0.3µH.

Trio Mediæval: Solacium, Victoria: Officium hebdomadae sanctae, Ieva Jokubaviciute: Northscapes and Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Enigma.

Grateful Dead: Grateful Dead, Scritti Politti: Cupid & Psyche 85 and Stone Temple Pilots: Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop.

As the title of a fan blog puts it, indie is not a genre. It is potentially every genre. It's an attitude, an approach, a commitment to self-expression without regard to, or in spite of, mainstream demands. It's the blend that nobody can label, the outré, the ahead-of-its-time, the defiantly retro.