Vladan Jovanovich told me, and in quite some technical detail, about a new music system that he had assembled from old but unused components. The key to it is a player that uses magnetic tapes, which were used to record music many decades ago. The speakers are of the same vintage. “I broke my back bringing them into the room I now use for listening to the music,” he beamed at me. He was lucky to find a whole bunch of old but unused master tapes, as well. “You can’t believe how good the sound is!” According to him, the new digital technology is way inferior to the old analog one. “The singer or player is right in front of you, alive!” I just nodded and nodded. “Once you hear this stuff,” he beamed at me again, “you can’t stand the new music equipment.” Although much of the technical detail was well beyond me, I understood him perfectly well. So well, in fact, that I cannot listen to my music machine at home any longer. Try as I may, everything I listen to sounds kind of wrong. Every singer or player to my liking now sounds distorted and remote. Nay, fake. All I can actually hear is the damned box in front of me. I can only hope that I will never have a chance to witness Vladan’s new music system.