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<I>A truly great preamplifier lets everything through, both music and distortion, but with such generosity that neither...is cramped and narrow.</I>&mdash;<B>Larry Archibald</B> (footnote 1)

The cab's outside, the plane leaves in 50 minutes. Let's see...<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/530/">HeadRoom Supreme</A>, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//accessoryreviews/531/">HeadRoom Bag</A>, portable CD player, CDs, Etymotic ER-4S Canal Phones....Oh, yeah&mdash;mustn't forget luggage or plane tickets. Guess I'm set to go.</I>

<I>A truly great preamplifier lets everything through, both music and distortion, but with such generosity that neither...is cramped and narrow.</I>&mdash;<B>Larry Archibald</B>(footnote 1)

Sonus Faber provides a fascinating and challenging insight into the art of high-quality sound reproduction. This Italian company makes two costly two-way stand-mounted speakers that couldn't be more different from each other.

One of the great imponderables in hi-fi is how much the vibrations of a dynamic loudspeaker's cabinet walls contribute to its overall sound quality. Studies by William Stevens in the mid-1970s showed that, with some speakers, the acoustic output of the enclosure could be almost as much as that from the drive-units. Since then, responsible speaker designers have worked hard either to damp cabinet vibrations or to shift them to higher frequencies where their effect on the music will be less deleterious.

"I never touch the stuff," I say, totally disassociating myself from my husband's addiction. "Well," I admit, when pushed, "I <I>do</I> use it sometimes---but I never do the hard stuff."

Americans might be forgiven if they haven't heard of Epos. A small, British specialist loudspeaker manufacturer, it was founded in 1983 by its designer, Robin Marshall—an ex-BBC engineer and a onetime consultant to Monitor Audio, according to Roy Hall of Epos's US importer, Music Hall. Their first model, the ES 20, didn't make it to the US, and was apparently a bit too pricey in the UK to make much of a splash there (about £700, $1300 at the current rate of exchange—a mint in a country with the patent on sub-$500/pair (UK prices!) two-ways). In 1986 or thereabouts, the new, smaller ES 14 was introduced, using updated versions of the same drivers in a smaller, ported cabinet. Music Hall only recently began importing the Epos into the US.