Welcome back, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the continuing saga of the Englishman's Search for True Bass. In the previous episode (footnote 1), you witnessed Our Hero tussling with the problems of ported vs sealed-box woofer loading for full-range speaker systems. His conclusion? That ported designs may offer low-frequency quantity but it always seems to be at the expense of quality. If it's bass quality you want, you are better off with well-tuned sealed boxes, which explains why he is an unashamed fan of relatively small speakers with fast, tight upper bass. In this month's thrilling installment, JA—stiff upper lip thrust forward—wrestles with the problems of extending the bass response of his preferred speakers with a subwoofer from the Californian company of Sumo! Now read on . . .

In our “Becoming an Audiophile” series, readers share stories of how they got into the hi-fi hobby. This is the story of how Bill Pauluh became an audiophile.

On the topic of real hi-fi in the real world, Pro-Ject Debut III turntables and Grado SR80i headphones are available at CB2, the Crate & Barrel offshoot for modern, affordable home goods. No joke: Hi-fi is hip again.

I was sort of surprised when I saw that Urban Outfitters, the hipster home and apparel shop, had started selling LPs. I was more surprised to learn that they had a headphone listening station&#151you can actually walk into the store with your iPod and audition a bunch of headphones. But now Urban Outfitters is carrying Music Hall turntables and Audioengine powered loudspeakers. I really like this.

Erick Lichte mentioned Totem Acoustic's Beak, which costs $125/pair, in his follow-up review of the Totem Forest loudspeaker in January 2010. The Beak is a bullet-shaped device, about 2" high by 1.5" in diameter, that's intended to be placed atop a speaker to control "parasitic resonances." I was given a pair of these more than 10 years ago, and have tried them with various speakers. While Erick didn't find the Beaks to make any difference to the sound of the Forests or any of the other speakers he had to hand, my experience was different.