Alex Halberstadt

About a decade ago, The Wall Street Journal posted a short video about Itsushi Hamasaki, a diffident and rather nondescript man living in Tokyo. To free up money for his loudspeakers—a pair of hulking horns costing north of $100,000—Hamasaki lives in a 250 ft² apartment and hasn't bought a stitch of clothing in 15 years.

Whenever I spend time in Vienna, I never think I'm going to eat schnitzel every day, but somehow it happens anyway. The truth is that when done right, schnitzel is a scientifically perfect dish: unexpectedly light, texturally complete, and oddly comforting.

Most of us, most of the time, live in the world of good enough. On a Saturday, we might drive our Ford Fiesta to pick up a polo shirt at Banana Republic, then dine at Outback Steakhouse, and later get ready for bed with a mug of Celestial Seasonings Caramel Apple Dream tea while watching an episode of Hoarder House Flippers.

I find myself appreciating more and more the way perfectionist audio—a peculiar mix of art, craft, and engineering—tends to attract idealists. Temperamentally, hi-fi people tend to be unlike people involved in the manufacture of ring-joint gaskets or digital kitchen timers—activities that, without a doubt, have their own scales of excellence.

Aidas Svazas is an artisan residing in Lithuania's second largest city, Kaunas. Svazas started out as a cartridge repairman, and our first encounter took place when, on a friend's recommendation, I sent him a Fairchild 225-A, a mono cartridge from the 1950s, to be restored.

It's difficult to put a positive spin on moving. A recent survey ranked it as life's most stressful event, ahead of divorce, losing a job, or becoming a parent. Forty-two percent of respondents said it brought them to tears. Thirteen percent said it was worse than a week in jail.

"You should come to CAF," Ken Micallef said. He has been saying this for what seems like decades. "It's cool, smaller and more manageable than AXPONA. You'll like it."