If buying a hi-fi product from an internet retailer is like an arranged marriage, a hi-fi show is like speed dating.
Not everyone, I realize, approaches hi-fi shows (or speed dating, for that matter) the same way, and anyway, the analogy between hi-fi and dating is far from perfect. Speed dating is how this year’s AXPONA,1 America’s biggest hi-fi show, often felt to me as I moved from room to room. Every new system I heard had the potential to become a long-term relationship. Could I live with this one forever?
It may seem strange to be so passionate about something as pedestrian as consumer electronics—to equate commerce to
