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They were quite a couple. Like a pair of Octopi in heat. First, he was grabbing her ass. Then he had his hands up the back of her shirt. Then, up the front. Then he had his hands down the back of her pants. Then, down the front. Both hands and about half of his forearms. Her only reaction was to smile, swoon and stick her tongue in his mouth. I'm damned impressed that she was able to keep her clothes on during this determined assault upon her New Jersey virtue. Best of all, during this entire spectacle, they were simultaneously kissing and falling down at the same time. Groping does not begin to get what was happening in my section on Thursday night at the Beacon Theatre.

I think it's time to talk about Floods' <i>Transmission</i>, as the album is now almost a year old. It was released on August 8, 2008. I know this album very well because I'm one of Floods' two band members. I played a lot of guitar for <i>Transmission</i> and even sang a little bit, while my good friend, Brother Todd, handled the synths, programming, and editing. We shared arrangement duties and we never fought about anything, I swear.

I woke up this morning with the sun in my face and Heather Duby's "<a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/031908heatherduby/">Places Shape Lives</a>" churning through my mind. I heard the old moan of cello and the aching melody, the hypnotic precision of the just-tuned drums, the constant trembling of the strangled guitar, and I knew it would be a good day.

Tell the truth, now: When you're traveling on vacation, and supposedly engaged only in the normal tourist activities of seeing the sights, visiting museums, etc., aren't you also on the lookout for interesting audio stores?

For 14 years, <A HREF="http://www.thecableco.com/">The Cable Company</A> has been running its annual Summer Against Hunger campaign to raise money for those in need. As was the case last year, The Cable Company says they "are again able to guaranty that 100% of purchases of sponsored products in August will benefit CARE!"

Rather a mouthful, the name of this digital decoder is derived from that of the designer, Robert Wadia Moses. The "computer" part of the title relates to the custom digital filter function generated by a set of 32-bit microprocessors: for simplicity's sake, I shall abbreviate the name to "WD1000." A more expensive version, called the '2000, sells for $6995, and carries some additional features and details. The resampling rate is increased to 64x in the '2000, with the additional optical and digital input switching and the main power supplies each contained in separate additional enclosures.

A reader who asked to remain anonymous wrote to tell us the results of some tests he saw conducted on one of our top-rated loudspeaker systems. Frequency-response checks showed that the system had virtually no deep bass, a midbass peak, a midrange slump, and a high-end rise. Further checks had shown gross distortion at input levels of over about 6W, and a definitely limited (although adequate for Row-M listening) maximum output-level capability. Said reader then went on to ask how we could possibly consider such a speaker to be one of the best available.