Just last Tuesday I sat in my audio den, yawning, and a little perturbed as I pulled open another box of free audio equipment shipped in by an adoring manufacturer. The U.S. Postal Service slammed the morning mail against the front door, a pile which included a flock of news releases and technical reports on the latest audio components. I cross-faded the Boston album to Journey, and leafed through the releases to see if any of the components were held by girls in bathing suits.

Halfway through, my eye caught news of a hew set of stereo headphones. Headphones. I haven't thought about headphones much in the last few years. Except for airline pilots and dentists, headphones are like trip glasses: a relic of a faraway time when Sgt. Pepper, headphones, and drugs induced sonic dimensions and delusions.