Are you old enough to remember when the wires connecting speakers to even the most expensive and sophisticated electronics were 16-gauge, multistrand lamp cord, and the terminals on speakers and amplifiers were just little screws? Sometimes those screws wouldn't even secure all of the wires' strands, but as long as loose strands from one screw didn't touch loose strands from the other, it was good enough . . . and back against the wall went your bookshelf speakers.

This is not a soundtrack record.

Chicagoland dealer Musical Artisans (8335 N. Keeler Avenuem Skokie,) and Maryland dealer JS Audio (4919 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda) are both having open houses this weekend: JS Audio presenting Wilson Audio's Peter McGrath playing his 4-channel recordings on a system featuring new components from Wilson, D'Agostino, dCS, and Nordost starting at 5pm, and Musical Artisans presenting the Midwest debut of DeVore Fidelity's new Gibbon X loudspeaker from 6:30–9:30pm.