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There is something especially exciting about a new loudspeaker design, if only because speakers are the component where one constantly hopes for the sonic miracle that will suddenly make it all sound real. No other component has the same overall impact in coloring the system, presents more room problems, or inspires more frustration on the road to the perfect system.

<I>A hot topic for discussion in recent issues of </I>Stereophile<I> has been the impact Home Theater has had on the High End. Some of the magazine's contributors&#151;<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/693awsi">J. Gordon Holt</A> and Corey Greenberg, for example&#151;have written that the advent of Home Theater means that we should expand the audio context of the magazine to include reviews of video components (footnote 1). Others, including Bob Harley, Tom Norton, and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/393awsi">myself</A&gt;, feel that we should <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/68">stick to what we know</A> and love&#151;audio&#151;and enter the new field only to advise </I>Stereophile<I>'s readers on how to achieve the best sound from a Home Theater system. However, missing from the debate in our pages so far have been any comments from those in the business of selling and demonstrating high-end products and, increasingly, Home Theater systems. Accordingly, this month I am running a guest editorial from a man who perhaps typifies the high-end, specialist retailer: Ken Gould of Audio Nexus (footnote 2). Please note that Mr. Gould's opinions are his own and do not represent those of the magazine.</I>&#151;<B>John Atkinson</B>

I have a little space heater that I keep in my kitchen because the kitchen is where it's coldest. The wind whips against our old apartment building and rattles the old windows and sets the sparrows and the starlings fluttering into my thin walls where they've made their nests. If there was ever any insulation in those thin walls, it must be long gone.

It’s a bad idea to gin up expectations, but two concerts this week at Town Hall in New York City are worth the risk. Each commemorates Thelonious Monk’s big-band concert at the same Town Hall on Feb. 28, 1959—exactly 50 years ago—but in very different ways. This Thursday, Feb. 26, Charles Tolliver leads a 10-piece band on a straightforward (if that word can describe anything related to Monk) re-creation of the concert. The next night, Feb. 27, Jason Moran leads an octet on a bold re-conceptualization of the event, a sort of post-modern audio-video collage that aims to capture the spirit of Monk’s music while also tapping into its hidden roots and their links to Moran himself.

There are dozens of CD- or higher-resolution download sites now online. Which begs the question: How much of the music you acquire is in the form of downloads, either low- and/or high-resolution?

It was love at first sight when I saw a Jamo Reference R 909 loudspeaker in sparkling red lacquer on the floor of the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show. It made no sound, but it was beautiful, and I wanted it. It summoned up all my latent predilections for snazzy colors, striking shapes, and dipole speakers. But, as with many passing encounters in life, nothing came of it.

Though earlier in the day I had entertained ideas of soaring through the cold night, piercing hearts from here to Williamsburg and back, when it came time to make my move, I could only sit there, alone, still and quiet and entirely comfortable on my warm, orange couch.