My Russian neighbor Alex forges ax heads and smokes pig chests 5' from my bedroom window. At 2:00am, shirtless, in February. One especially cold night, I woke up to the sounds of hammering and loud music. When I looked out, Alex was blacksmithing a glowing red meat cleaver blade, with Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff blaring from a cassette in his boom box.

Super fans who dig deeper into a favorite artist's recording catalog eventually come to the crossroads of performance versus sonics. In the case of Sly Stone, who died this past June at age 82, that question has new relevance with the release on CD and vinyl of a "new" Sly and the Family Stone record, The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967.

This past May, I stormed the halls of the international audio orgy High End Munich. My scorched-earth tour covered countless rooms, in pursuit of the holy grail of music playback. Among the finalists, a clear pattern emerged: With a few exceptions, my favorite rooms used horn-loaded speakers.

This review started with a gentle handoff. My ol' pal Walter Swanbon of Fidelis Distribution stopped by Brooklyn to take away the $10,000 Limited Edition Falcon LS3/5a loudspeakers and drop off the $10,000 eos DAC by Ideon. As he was getting in his car, I yelled, "Walter! I'm warning you! If that thing's not plug'n'play, I'll put it right there on that curb."