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A hilarious account of one man's attempt to legally download a video via Movielink.

Some folks like the insights and companionship other audiophiles can offer, others prefer to go it alone when they hit the audio shop. Do you audition audio equipment by yourself or with others?

In 1977, just as I was about to take my first faltering steps in hi-fi journalism, the UK's <I>Hi-Fi News</I> ran two articles, translated from French originals by Jean Hiraga, that seemed to me and many others to turn the audio world we knew upside down. The second of them, "Can We Hear Connecting Wires?" was published in the August issue and is the better remembered because it introduced many English-speaking audiophiles to the contention that cables can sound different. The earlier article, published in the March issue, was less earthshaking but still an eyebrow-raiser of considerable force. Simply titled "Amplifier Musicality," it was a response to the word <I>musicality</I> being increasingly used in subjectivist circles to describe the perceived performance of amplifiers and other audio components. It was implicit that musicality was a quality not captured by conventional measurement procedures&mdash;a lack of correlation that Hiraga's article sought to address.

Not only is it possible for a thinking person to now and then drastically change his point of view, if for no other reason than the sake of change&mdash;if one wishes to prevent self-seriousness and various other forms of mental decay, it's probably an outright must. So it was that I recently began to wonder if everything I know about record players might be wrong.

The relationship between many audiophiles and well-sung, well-recorded female vocal tracks is like the relationship between alcoholics and alcohol&mdash;or between, apparently, quite a few congresspersons and unworked-for money. The sentence, "Thank you, but I really have had enough already," is seldom heard. In defense of our hobby, buying and setting up stereo equipment so that gorgeous singing can enthrall you does no one any harm, and arguably does much good. "Beauty is truth," and all that.

On Friday, April 29, AP <A HREF="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060428/ap_en_mu/music_downloads_royalties;…; that Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers Band were suing Sony Music over the record label's payment for music downloads through Napster and the iTunes Music Service.

<B><I>Living With War</I></B><BR>
Reprise