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<i>Don Garber's Fi 46 monoblocks, in "test mule" form.</i>

Does spending more money on audio equipment get you better sound? Some audiophiles assume that anything that costs more must be better—and that if it's relatively inexpensive, then it can't be any good. Others hold the opposite view: expensive components can't possibly be worth their prices, and those who manufacture them—and audio journalists who report on them—must be charlatans.

Henry Threadgill should be better known than he is. A topnotch musician on alto sax and flute, one of the more innovative composers in jazz, a veteran of the Chicago avant-garde and a revivalist of ragtime improvisational styles (the two are not so contradictory, as he was the first to demonstrate), Threadgill started out on small labels, briefly landed contracts at RCA Novus and Columbia during their brief flirtations with experimentalists (in the late ‘80s and mid ‘90s, respectively), then went back to the indies—all the while retaining, even advancing, his spirit of adventure and his restless but disciplined innovation.

"Is it live or is it recorded?"

Show a time traveler from the 1920s an iPad and most likely he'd neither know what he was looking at nor what it might do. Show him a loudspeaker, even one as advanced as Magico's new Q5 ($59,950/pair), and he'd probably know exactly what it was and what it did, even if what it's made of might seem to have come from another planet.

DeVore Fidelity Gibbons, in cherry and bamboo and rosewood cabinets, in all shapes and sizes and states of life. Some of these little sweethearts may never see the light of day, while others may wind up in the home of some happy music lover.

The self-titled album by Guano Padano, released earlier this year by Important Records, is a joy. The band, an Italian three-piece (Alessandro Stefana, Zeno de Rossi, and Danilo Gallo), is joined by Alessandro Alessandroni (whistler, best known for his work in Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks), Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart/Jeff Buckley guitarist), Chris Speed (clarinet player with Tim Berne, Uri Caine, and John Zorn), and Italian singer, Bobby Solo, who does a fine rendition of Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man.” Awesome album; great sound, too.