The Big Oh

The Audiophile celebrated what is commonly called a "significant birthday" this past week. In keeping with custom, I sang him the birthday song Marilyn Monroe style. That is if Marilyn were a little off-key, a little less provocative, and among the living. I like to think this ritual of mine keeps the bar low for Alison Krauss to consistently sound better in an A/B comparison with myself.

Since significant birthdays are made slightly more palatable with significant gifts, I was going to take The Audiophile on a trip to the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. However, it seems the show is not open to the general grazing public, probably because of our tendency to be more interested in cud chewing than purchasing in bulk.

Instead, I went to the mall to browse the brightly lit exhibits on display at the Steve Jobs Memorial Hall of Fame. It was a confusing and intimidating experience, and although there was not a single black turtleneck sweater available for purchase, there were plenty of outlandishly-priced alternatives that fought for my attention.

Now The Audiophile can blow out virtual birthday candles and read "The Sound Pile" digitally - that is once I'm finished cataloging my recipes and updating my social network status. At first blush, this gift may ring of selfish motivation, yet, if you will recall, my most recent gift from him was a sound system.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Boxing Day

There is a holiday coming up on the 26th of December in which some people in some countries graciously present service workers, like the kindly delivery truck driver, with a gift for their death-defying service. I think this is a spectacular idea given the conditions these fine folks work under when tasked with carting unwieldy speaker crates and surly subwoofers around the globe and back again.

The Audiophile, however, observes Boxing Day a little differently. Sometime after Christmas, when he thinks I'll be looking to pole vault the tree back into the storage room, he will retreat to said room to privately celebrate his collection of original boxes. These boxes "which MAY be needed to ship a component and are NOT to be used by other members of the household" will be rearranged and organized like a nested community of belligerent Russian dolls.

When he is finished I will hear a muffled, sweaty shout from the basement beckoning me to come from afar and admire the man skills that were required to slay the corrugated dragon. Although it will be difficult to contain my excitement, I will calmly approach the victory ring while rehearsing my carefully crafted response which is always, "Wow, honey, that is incredible." This, according Dan Webster himself, is the precise word to use in a situation which is so extraordinary it seems impossible. Roger that, Mr. Webster, Roger that.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Speaking in Tongues

Here's something that may not apply to all audiophile's but certainly applies to The Audiophile with whom I am most familiar. It is the nature of how his brain functions when it comes to recalling basic information.

If you ask The Audiophile to name the speakers he had during the Reagan administration, he will instantly fire back with, "That would be the Hydrobobonic PR67's." Further quizzing about any of his ever-rotating inventory of components will reveal a freakish capacity for total recall. This is clearly a handy skill for those times when he is on the phone with another audiophile who speaks his language because it makes for scintillating conversation.

Yet if you ask The Audiophile to bear witness to our children's dates of birth, things get a little dicey even though we only have two or three kids. So, being the unconditionally loving wife that I play in my own mind, I have devised a plan to refer to the fruit of our loins with a helpful nomenclature.

It will go something like, "Honey, SM328 called and he and SP404 will be here for Christmas. Oh, and before I forget, a 'bedroom system' may seem like a great gift idea for MegaWife 2.0, but she would really prefer bubble bath and a lifetime supply of never moving a subwoofer again."

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Tis the Season

Seeing as how this is the time of the year where we celebrate the birth of our Savior by stimulating the economy, I thought I would give The Audiophile something related to his hobby. I mean, not his hobby, because I've been told it is not a hobby, but rather his... his... I don't know. If it is not his career, and it is not his hobby, I guess that makes it his passion, which sounds somewhat better than calling it the "love of his life."

The mailbox cooperated with my plan by offering six catalogs peddling everything from tiny underpants to chocolate-covered prunes, which should probably not be partaken of simultaneously. My attention, however, was on the audio catalog whom I selected as my traveling companion for the business at hand.

It took about six seconds with my nose in the glossy pages for me to realize this was not going to be easy or comfortable. I had no idea a power amp needed mega isolation nor did I realize metal connectors were susceptible to oxidation and corrosion. If this wasn't horrifying enough there was a photograph of a $13,000 subwoofer (reduced to $7,999) with a mature gentleman crouched next to it TOUCHING THE DRIVER.

For the record, I would like to say my intentions were good, but the non-audiophile has no business saddling up the hi-fi pony on the Christmas catalog merry-go-round. Fortunately, The Audiophile also likes wool socks and chocolate-covered fruit so I've got that going for me.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Gender Confusion

It seems there are a couple of readers out there who believe I am a man. Perhaps this is because I have not devoted sufficient airtime to the discussion of birthing children or divulged a weakness for designer shoes. To authenticate my gender, I conducted an unscientific survey in which two out of two people unanimously agreed I have the necessary anatomical coordinates to be classified as a woman.

That being settled, there needs to be some consensus on whether stereo components are male or female. In my opinion, the following are all male: subwoofers, components housed in austere rectangular cases, and speakers that flirt unabashedly with the ceiling. That leaves speakers that do not flirt with the ceiling for closer examination.

The smaller more demure speakers, which do not rupture one's spleen when moving them from Point A to Point B to Point A, could be mistaken as female, but I propose most are actually male. The defining characteristic that separates the he's from the she's, if I'm not mistaken, is the slight taper in the midsection, which creates the womanly silhouette. These rare and exotic creatures, as mentioned previously, can be found in the workshop of the Denmarkian elves who handcraft these lovely ladies while maintaining a high degree of sensitivity to their cyclical highs and lows.

As for the gender of the elves, my feminine intuition tells me they are probably men because women would question the necessity of green tights and pointy wooden shoes to obtain an accurate frequency response.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Tinker Toys

There are many things I do not understand about audiophilia nervosa. One is the idea of taking something apart, applying fire, and expecting it to be better than it was before. I suppose you could make a case for this theory if the subject were a chicken or a goat, but it seems a little shaky when it comes to stereo equipment.

Nevertheless, The Audiophile likes to take his rectangular toys apart, remove their innards, shake them, smell them, and then put them back with the aid of a soldering iron aka fire. He says he has changed out the parts for better parts, but I've looked into the open chest cavity of the rectangles, and the "before" looks exactly the same as the "after" as far as I can tell.

Sometimes, when he is desperate, he solicits my assistance with these projects. I am generally tasked with holding something PERFECTLY STILL while he wields the soldering iron like a drunken samurai warrior. Once, my hand was accidentally nipped by the iron during one of these adventures which provided me with an opportunity to howl like Janet Leigh and then lord the incident over him for a yet-to-be-determined period of time.

Still, it is enjoyable to have him set up shop in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon. He can spread the entrails of some mysterious item across the island while I putter with a culinary masterpiece. The only challenge in sharing kitchen space is my overwhelming desire to hide one of his parts for my personal amusement. It would, of course, be returned with a smile when I handed him fresh-baked cookies and milk, but my rational brain tells me only one of us would be amused with these high jinks.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Conspiracy Theories

My distrust of subwoofers has been well documented in previous posts, but I may have to add "enormous speaker crates" to the list of the maligned.

Currently The Audiophile has two sets of speakers doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe in The Listening Room. So far; so good. However, the set that is generally referred to as the "body scanners" arrived in crates that could easily hold a dead body or I suppose a live body, but I prefer not to think on that so, redact.

The crates had been living peaceably in our garage, minding their own business, or so I thought, until the day The Audiophile determined they should be moved inside to the storage room. This seemed like a fine idea to me since one of our able-bodied sons had been recruited to assist with the transportation detail.

The problem arose when the lid, JUST the lid, from one of the crates launched itself at The Audiophile's biggest of toes. I don't know if the lid was in telepathic cahoots with the subwoofer or if this was the work of a lone gunman, but the near-death experience certainly gives one pause. The good news is, The Audiophile did not need surgery, stitches, or an amputation. And thank goodness for that because a prosthetic toe would have totally horsed up the acoustics in The Listening Room.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

His and His

A couple of weeks ago I had the audacity to gloat about MY new speakers that were being set up in MY living space to provide ME with my own source of auditory pleasure. Yes, well, as with all of my gloating, the time has come to acknowledge I was misguided.

The new system, briefly known as "mine," has become very attractive to The Audiophile because it is hooked up to a thing that siphons music from heaven or wherever it is music lives when it is not vacationing on a compact disc. Consequently, the Audiophile has quickly become addicted to the manna and has been inhaling deeply from the personalized stations he has created to play his favorite music both past and present. Mostly past. Mostly by artists with whom I have been happily unfamiliar.

I concede I have horrible taste in music, which I blame on Nancy Sinatra and a pair of fabulous white fashion boots that I was given shortly after birth. Still, it is probably damaging my fragile self-esteem to allow someone else to select all of the music all of the time on a system that I now suspect was never going to be mine from the onset.

To remedy this situation, I took the liberty of creating my own personalized station this week. The thing is, the station was so bad no amount of clicking "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" could make it palatable--even for me. So, although I may not enjoy all of the music selected by The Audiophile, at least he can boast that no genomes were harmed in the making of his stations.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Windy City

Periodically The Audiophile and I take a trip to Chicago, which really needs to consider adopting a tag line that doesn't blatantly announce my every waking moment will be spent dragging my hair from my mouth.

On a recent trip, The Audiophile called ahead to area stereo shops to see if there was any gear he needed to visit at a remote location that likely doubled as a cover for other questionable activities. Sure enough, there was just such an item in just such a location for our homicidal pleasure, so we hailed a taxi and took off in a northerly direction from the heart of the city. We departed the taxi in an area of town that easily-frightened tourists commonly describe as "why didn't we tell the cabbie to wait" ville.

The owner of the establishment eagerly invited The Audiophile inside while I stood in the entry and ran the calculations on whether three people could simultaneously fit inside the store without personal violation. Ultimately the visit only lasted a couple of minutes because the proprietor had, it seems, exaggerated the quality, condition, and sheer existence of his inventory.

Fortunately it was a beautiful day for a purposeful walk with The Audiophile. I complimented him on his prophetic suggestion to start the day with sensible footwear as we quietly discussed whether we were still capable of sprinting should the need the arise. Thankfully, the need did not arise, and we eventually found the Brown Line and returned to familiar territory just in time for an architectural boat tour narrated over a pair of all-weather speakers, which, if I'm not mistaken, could have benefited from better cables and a tweak to the mid-range.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Reading Pleasure

The Audiophile subscribes to several magazines devoted to the obvious. I had never paid much attention to these periodicals because I assumed from looking at the covers that they were not written in my native tongue.

This all changed recently when I decided to thumb through an issue of what I will call "The Sound Pile." I didn't read any of the articles because that could have compromised my ignorance on this subject, but I did notice an advertisement featuring a physically enchanted woman posing with a pair of speakers.

The shocking part was she appeared to have been granted permission to actually touch the audio equipment. I looked carefully in the background of the image to see if I could make out an audiophile in the periphery shouting at her to NOT touch the drivers, whatever those are, but she seemed to have carte blanche over the photo shoot.

All in all, these magazines seem harmless enough as long as you wear a head-mounted magnifier to read the minuscule font used in the layout. Not that I'm complaining about the minuscule font because from a cost-benefit perspective we are definitely getting our money's worth out of these subscriptions with or without the speaker candy.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

His and Hers

The Audiophile doesn't always do so right away, but eventually he reads my weekly post. He astutely likes to point out where I've stated something incorrectly, which is pretty much all of the time given my proclivity for ignorance and hyperbole.

Recently he read the Hello Dolly entry in which I bemoaned the loss of my favorite speakers that departed our mud hut several years ago. THEN he used the departed as a swinging pocket watch to convince me we needed a Second System for MY living space.

As soon as I gave him my hypnotized go-ahead, he dashed to the www and began to quiz me on which speakers I wanted. I responded that I wanted them in rosewood. He peppered me with many other irrelevant questions all to which I replied, "I want them in rosewood."

A few days later some guy in Texas was packing up my rosewood furniture while his inconsolable wife was probably choking out a eulogy. I imagine her clinging to the ankles of the apologetic FedEx guy as he dragged both her and the crates down the driveway.

This post is dedicated to that wife. Dear wife, thank you for relinquishing parental rights to the twins. Rest assured they will be regularly polished with a free-range diaper, and, if necessary, I will puff myself up like a cat to protect them from the delinquent subwoofers that swagger through on occasion.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Mile High

According to my source, this is the weekend of one of the most highly anticipated audio festivals of the year. I've never been to this festival, and I truthfully don't know whether it is highly anticipated or just moderately contemplated. Either way, I suspect love is in the air for those who are making the pilgrimage.

It is a shame I will not be at this festival because I see they have generously devoted an entire page of their website to "spouse outings." Browsing the outing options allowed me to vicariously savor the thoughtful balance of activities that appeal to temporarily abandoned people of all walks.

If I were more entrepreneurial, I could have reserved an exhibitor room at the festival itself to peddle my wares. That I have no wares to peddle may have been problematic and somewhat confusing for the selection committee.

Instead, I have put "attend an audio festival" on my bucket list because it seems as if I should witness a gaggle of audiophiles in their natural habitat. Sure, I have preconceived ideas about what they look like when two or more are gathered together, but actually seeing them with the naked eye would not only be an educational opportunity for me, it would also make The Audiophile as giddy as a girl on a spouse outing.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

That One Bad Day

A few years ago, The Audiophile and I were entertaining a convivial couple with our witty banter and good looks. When that had run its course, The Audiophile segued to Plan B and ushered us to The Listening Room with a moderate amount of fanfare about our senses being on the verge of pleasures unknown.

He played a couple of songs at normal listening levels to assess whether we could handle the pent-up testosterone of the subwoofer, and then he slowly began to up the volume until he had perfectly synchronized our bobbing heads. Shortly after this, things went awry. It was the aroma that first got our attention. Something was burning, like hair or poultry feathers or forty-five dead cows.

The Audiophile threw himself at the subwoofer to presumably reestablish his position of dominance and then quickly turned his attention to one of the other rectangular things on the forbidden side of the room. After fussing with a couple of screws, he lifted the case on the innocent bystander and unleashed a belch of putrid white smoke that gave three of the four of us permission to run for our lives.

The Audiophile courageously stayed behind to assess the damage and whimper a little, but eventually he joined us outside where God was faithfully making new air. He solemnly reported that the sub had bucked loose from one of its connectors causing a short that had fried the more emotionally vulnerable component.

In the end, the victim of the audio fisticuff was repaired for less than the cost of an alpaca. But more importantly, we all learned a valuable lesson: subwoofers are bullies.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Cable Guy

One of the most difficult situations to navigate as The Audiophile's Wife is what I call the one-two audio punch. It is where the "How does it sound?" is directed at a new set of cables. It is hard enough to hear the difference in new speakers, or amps, or pre-pre-pre-amps, but cables? Dude, I may look a little canine first thing in the morning, but the similarities stop there.

So, here's what I'm going to do some time when I have nothing better going on, like tomorrow or any of the days after tomorrow. I am going to take six spools of thread from my sewing basket and three pointy paper cups, which I intend to heist from the dispenser at the YMCA. I will smuggle these accessories into the master bathroom. Stay with me here, this is an all-ages show.

The plan is to strategically place the spools to support the cord of my curling iron so the cord never ever touches the countertop. After I successfully do that, I'm going to balance the curling iron itself on the paper cups (pointy end down). As you might imagine, this will require patient endurance and may cause a house fire, but that's why we have replacement-value life insurance. Then I'm going to call for The Audiophile, and when he arrives, I'm going to say, "Well, Mr. A/B, do I look prettier?"

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Big Boys

The Audiophile was out of town on business again this week. Or should I say "business." Call me old fashioned, but I like to make sure he has what he needs before leaving on these trips. You know, clean socks, hardtack, and a pile of American currency which leads me to why this was a parenthetical business trip.

There will be, and I quote, "A stop on the way home to pick up a pair of speakers." Now, understand, I don't care about the stop or the speakers or the departure of the currency, but I am concerned about the "on the way home" part of that statement because Kansas was definitely not on the way home, Toto.

When he pulled in the garage he was very excited to see me. And by "me" I mean me on the receiving end of the 100-pound twins that needed to be birthed from the back of the SUV.

After some fretting over cables and compatibility, his new-used speakers were up and running or at least slow jogging in their place of submission behind the body scanners. In my opinion, the new additions to the family look normal enough from the front, but when you glance at their backsides it is like seeing a pair of half-naked skeletons. Not that skeletons regularly wear clothes, but they should.

All I know for sure is the arrival of new gear is like a holiday because it turns The Audiophile into a kid on Christmas morning who has come downstairs in his footie pajamas to find a poopless pony tethered to the tree.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Hello Dolly

Once upon a time there were a pair of beautiful speakers in The Listening Room. Saying I loved them would probably make The Audiophile feel bad for having cold-heartedly boxed them up and sold them to some incredibly lucky human being in a far-away land. Instead I'll just say I thought very highly of these beautiful speakers. And I miss them. And I think they miss me.

It doesn't seem prudent to mention brand names so let's just say they were probably made in Denmark where fastidious Denmarkian elves rubbed their cabinets by hand until the cherrywood itself sang just as eloquently as Carol Channing or Babs Streisand. I don't know why The Audiophile decided to get rid of these beauties, but that is not my business. My business is to nod in agreement as things move in and move out of The Listening Room in order to maintain my status as The Perfect Wife, I mean, The Audiophile's Wife.

Sadly, the speakers that currently live in The Listening Room have been called "body scanners" by an astute visitor who could not help but notice their unaesthetic qualities. Maybe, to be fair, they are simply more akin to modern art than, say, impressionism.

According to The Audiophile these body scanners produce fantastic sound. He says they are more transparent with a sound stage that... that... that... I don't know what he said after this because I drifted off a little during the explanation. Anyway, sometimes if I close my eyes and remain awake while listening to the body scanners, I can almost imagine they have the impressionistic beauty of the speakers of yesteryear.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Listening Sofa

Furniture, in my experience, has rarely held a designated purpose. As discussed previously, rooms have designated purposes, but furniture? Not so much. Which is how we come to the exceptions to this rule: the piano bench, the sewing chair, and The Listening Sofa. As revealed by the title of this episode, today's focus will be on the latter of these three oddities.

Be not confused, the sofa itself is not listening or if it is, it is not telling. The Listening Sofa is generally found in the hinterland of The Listening Room, but it is not haphazardly placed as if The Cat in the Hat were in charge of the affair. Oh no, it is positioned a specific number of inches from The System into a magical zone which is purported to be the epicenter of The Listening Experience.

Is there anything to know about sitting on the sofa you may ask? Good golly, yes. Apparently if you are slightly off center, the chances of achieving total audio consciousness evaporate like spit on a griddle, so here is an important tip:

If you are ever invited to sit on a Listening Sofa, wait for your host to sit down first. If The Audiophile sits toward one end of the sofa, position yourself in exactly the same place on the other end for optimal aerodynamic balance. Use a ruler or a foot-long submarine sandwich as a measuring device if necessary. If, however, The Audiophile sits precisely in the middle of the sofa, assume you are supposed to sit on his lap. This will not improve The Audiophile's listening experience, but it will measure his sense of humor and/or his capacity for profanity.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

How does it sound?

Accepting an invitation to join The Audiophile in The Listening Room is mildly intimidating. I know at some point, The Audiophile will turn to me and ask, "How does it sound?" And no matter how many adjectives I have at my disposal, I simply do not have the expertise to apply any of them to this question without sounding like a dope.

That being said, I accepted such an invitation a few nights ago to listen to "an album" which was really "a compact disc." As usual there was some fuss about how I was sitting on The Listening Sofa and whether I was positioned to maximize the experience, but eventually we settled in so I could commence the listening process. Interestingly, after a very short time, I was convinced The System sounded like - pardon my use of a pedestrian adjective - crap.

After a few songs, The Audiophile turned to me and said, "How does it sound?" I squirmed uncomfortably and grimaced a little to hopefully soften the blow before I replied, "Well, I hate to say this, but I think it sounds like crap." Then I waited.

The Audiophile threw his hands into the air and responded with, "I KNOW, IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE. I put these new blah har whos, in the quirp da flanger, and it killed the bass."

Bass. I know that word, and he was right, the bass had gone hasta la bye bye and the sound was not good, but we had turned a corner. Although I had no idea what he was talking about as it related to the unfortunate circumstances of The System, I had, for the first time, recognized bad sound.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Listening Room

A long time ago God created Adam because He needed someone to handle the arduous task of naming everything on earth. Adam named all the animals and plants and then he named the various rooms in the garden. I'm not quoting scripture here, but I think he probably named the bathroom, the bedroom, and the living room before Eve interrupted him in the food room and challenged him to use a little creativity.

We can assume Adam eventually found a room in the garden for which Eve had no immediate plans, and he marked off this territory with police tape and named it The Listening Room. Undoubtedly Eve was confused by this room when she realized that Adam had no capacity to hear a word she said when she tried to visit with him while he was in the room "listening." Nevertheless, being the loving and supportive wife that she was, Eve gladly obliged Adam in his quest to create his own private Idaho within the Garden of Eden.

The Listening Room that occupies our personal residence does not likely resemble Adam's original room at all. The ficus trees are fake and probably emit toxic potpourri into the environment, and there is a lot of stuff that requires electricity which Adam did not have until he met and named Thomas Edison.

In my opinion our listening room serves its purpose very well. It provides a place to tenderly unpack all the audio-related boxes that are delivered to our home. It creates a gallery for us to display our vast collection of acoustic panels. And, most importantly, it allows The Audiophile to experience heaven on earth.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Bread Boxes

A package arrived today addressed to The Audiophile. I don't open these packages because, well, they are not addressed to me and I don't want to violate any Federal laws that could end with me tapping out dit-dit-dit-dah-dah-dah-dit-dit-dit on the bars of my ill-appointed jail cell.

I won't know what is in this particular package for a few days because The Audiophile is out of town working at his paying job. This paying job affords him the ability to not only support his wife's every want and need but to also order audio accoutrements that come in packages which are happily delivered to our front door by the kindly people who drive truck for a wide variety of delivery companies.

I'm not a betting man, mainly because I'm not a man, but I'm wagering this box contains a doohickey that goes inside of one of the thingamabobs that lives semi-permanently in The Listening Room. More on The Listening Room and its semi-permanent furnishings another time.

As it relates to the package du jour, there are three pieces of good news as far as I am concerned: First, this package is not heavy so I will not be asked to help wrangle it into the house. Second, this package is not bigger than a bread box so I will not be asked to help shoehorn it down the stairs. Third, this package looks to be in pristine condition so I will not be in trouble for failing to gut punch the kindly delivery person who lovingly placed it on our doorstep.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Other Woman

Last Friday was big - huge even. The Audiophile and I were face-to-face with The Other Woman. I have to admit, she's everything a guy could hope for: beautiful, talented, confident, demure. "Voice of an angel" the Audiophile and his audiophile friends like to say with nods of solemn affirmation.

If you are the wife of an audiophile, you are already saying to yourself, "Ah, yes, I know to whom she refers. The one. The only. Alison Krauss."

Our seats were near the front of the Meadowbrook Pavilion in Gilford, New Hampshire. They were close enough for me to confirm her perfection. She does not have a single unwanted hair growing from her chin nor does she have a faint scar in the middle of her forehead from scratching at a chickenpox when she was in kindergarten.

The Audiophile salivated more than usual. Heck, I salivated more than usual myself. We probably should have worn lobster bibs as a precautionary measure.

Prior to the show I telepathically willed her (and Union Station, of course) to do "Ghost In This House" and "When You Say Nothing At All." To my delight, Alison was tuned in to my telepathic channel.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

It's Not That Heavy

You've heard it before. "HONEY, I NEED YOUR HELP WITH A BOX. IT'S NOT THAT HEAVY."

In The Audiophile's defense, this is true. These boxes are not as heavy as a piano or an igloo yet they are always much heavier than bread or toasted bread.

The idea of a blog from the wife's perspective began yesterday at 6:20 in the morning when I thought I could devote myself to drying my hair and applying some age-defying cosmetics. Instead I dutifully went to the source of the voice shouting lies to me from the basement.

The box, no, the "double-box" in question contained a subwoofer. My bare toes instinctively retracted.

Upon the command, "One... two... three... LIFT," I lifted. This time, however, I did not lift the box straight into my neck like I did with the last dainty, double-boxed subwoofer that was hauled from the basement. This time I lifted like the UPS professional I've become using my femurs and not my sciatic. Using my arms and not my face. Sure, there were the customary terse words exchanged halfway up the stairs and some lingering confusion about which side of the box was heavier, but we got the thing loaded into the back of the SUV without rupturing anything.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.