Michele Bachmann, who is now warning us about the rise of the USSR, vowing to padlock the EPA, and saying she will single–handedly bring back $2 a gallon gas. . .

Summer's end is traditionally known as "the silly season" in European newsrooms, but there was nothing silly about the bombshell of a press release that arrived on the desks of hi-fi journalists on August 19. Two of Europe's most successful and best-established high-end audio brands, Focal and Naim Audio, announced that they are joining forces to create a new company, Focal & Co., under the chairmanship of Focal founder Jacques Mahul. With a combined annual earnings of nearly £50 million ($82 million), ca £31 million for Focal and ca £18 million for Naim) and more than 300 employees, Focal & Co. will automatically become a European hi-fi leader in terms of sales and resources.

I think any newish company launching yet another expensive (ie, anything over $2000) digital-to-analog converter on the roiling waters of the audiophile marketplace needs at least two things: a truly great product, and a good story to tell. I think Bricasti Design Ltd., of Medford, Massachusetts, has both.

It wasn't so much a vow as a prediction: After selling my last pair of Ticonal-magnet drivers and the homemade horns I'd carted around to three different houses, I supposed I would never again have a Lowther loudspeaker in my humble house.

That remains literally true: The 7" full-range drivers to which I'm listening today are from a German company called Voxativ; the horn-loaded cabinets from which they play were also designed by Voxativ, and are made in Germany by the Wilhelm Schimmel piano company. And, with all due respect to Lowther, the 75-year-old English loudspeaker firm that launched a thousand DIY fantasies—not to mention a thousand very lively wavefronts—the Voxativ drivers and horns take the Lowther concept further than anyone else of whom I'm aware.