Wes Phillips

Jimi Hendrix on Swedish television in 1967. Need I say more? Computer speakers don't do it justice, turn it <I>up</I>.

Make mine a Venti? Give me a break! I once asked a Starbucks counterperson why they called their humongous-sized hot-milk drinks "ventis." "That's Italian for twenty," the barrista said. <I>Riiiight</I>, like any Italian I've ever met would slam down 20 oz. of coffee at a time.

This is so cool&mdash;the Library of Congress has posted excellent scans of pages from its exhibit of manuscripts from the era when Timbuktu was not synonymous with "as far away from here as you can get." Nine hundred years ago Mali was a flourishing trade center, serving as the entry point for goods from the Mediterranean and exit point for African trade. And, at the height of the Middle Ages, it was a nexis for scholarship and science.

Simple? Then <I>explain</I> what happens when liquid converts to gas. <I>Hah!</I> Not all that simple, eh smartypants? No, I can't do it either, but Eldred Chimowitz and Yonathan Shapir have created a mathematical model that might just do the trick.

After a week in a Vegas hotel, it was such a relief to come home to real water pressure in my shower, although I do understand why a city in the desert legislates low-pressure nozzles. I'm not sure I am unreservedly in favor of hacking showers, however. I stayed in a hotel in Sicuani, Peru once where the hot water function was a bare 220V wire wrapped around the water pipe. <I>That</I> woke me up&mdash;as did the cold shower I took after making sure the wire was disconnected. I think I may have even turned off the bathroom light just to be on the safe side.

T+A's Siegfried Amft thinks different. That's obvious from his beautifully designed tube and solid-state products, an observation that cruelly ignores how good they sound. I was happy to see that Amft made it to the show, because I reckoned that meant he had something new and startling to demonstrate. He did: Criterion TCI 2 Active loudspeakers ($25,500/pair), sarcophagi incorporating twin carbon fiber 10" woofers in a selaed enclosure, a 7" specially tuned midrange cone, and a curved electrostatic panel that Amft claims can produce SPLs above 120dB "while maintaining superb membrane travel and distortion characteristics."

Real men spin!