Researchers at MIT recently discovered a "music channel" in the human brain. These neural pathways respond to all kinds of music—and only to music. "A listener may relish the sampled genre or revile it," Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times. "No matter. When a musical passage is played, a distinct set of neurons tucked inside a furrow of a listener's auditory cortex will fire in response"

Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1, at 11am, Alma Music and Audio (5759 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla, CA 92037) will be celebrating its one-year anniversary with a special "Music Talks" event featuring darTZeel and Evolution Acoustics products. Guests will include darTZeel's Hervé Deletraz and Jonathan Tinn and Kevin Malmgren, the team behind Evolution Acoustics.

I still remember how difficult it was for me to transition from mass-market to high-end audio. The former, for all its flaws, gave me things to do: switches to flip, buttons to push, knobs to turn, meters to watch. I was in control—and if my attention happened to stray from the music or the liner notes, I still had something to keep me busy. By contrast, the first perfectionist-quality amplifier I bought—an Amber Series 70—was an oblong box with an on/off switch. Where's the fun in that?