Art Dudley

People love it when audio reviewers reach for that highest of all compliments: "I enjoyed the thing so much, I decided to keep it" (footnote 1). Manufacturers love it for obvious reasons. Readers love it because nuance is out of style at the moment, and the ambiguities implied by less decisive conclusions can be frustrating to adults who read with their mouths open. Publishers love it because strong, declarative statements have been scientifically proven, in double-blind reading tests, to attract subscribers.

Moderation, like a natural death, is what most thinking people roll toward, if only because extremism requires too much energy: Extreme points of view are hard to hold without a certain amount of self-delusion, and the brighter you are, the harder your self-deluder has to work.

My plan was to begin by revealing the highest sum I've paid for a wristwatch. It wasn't very much, and that would have been the point.

Today is Monday, February 5, and it's so buttercupping cold outside that the custodian couldn't get our school's oil burner started. Consequently, my daughter is home for the day, playing on the rug in front of the fireplace. (Santa brought a wooden castle and a fine selection of medieval figurines, some of which are headed for the dungeon as we speak.) I'm at my desk in the music room, on the upwind side of the house—and the wind is murder. The west wall is cold. The north wall is cold. The floorboards are cold. But the air inside is warm as toast: I'm driving my Quad ESL speakers with a Joule Electra VZN-80 amplifier ($12,000) that isn't at all bashful about squandering a goodly amount of energy as heat. I can't think of a more delightful quality for an amp to have, at least on a day like this.