Ken C. Pohlmann

Stop me if you've heard this one. An international arms dealer, a music composer, and a Hollywood starlet walk into a bar.....

“These companies copy other peoples' inventions, flood the market with chintzy products sold at bargain basement prices, and make consumers pay with their privacy.”

You can call me old fashioned. You can call me a Luddite. You can even call me Ishmael. But I like to read books. Paper books, thank you very much. Based on that, my homies at Barnes & Noble apparently think that I like to listen to vinyl too.

For the last few months I’ve thought a lot about the health of the audio/video industry. I worried that the success of smartphones and tablets was irreparably overwhelming traditional consumer-electronics technologies like audio/video. I tried to convince myself that smartphone mania would taper off and the mass market will rediscover big stereos and big TVs. I desperately wanted to evangelize for the profound pleasure that a kick-ass home theater can bring. But lately I’ve changed my mind. I have a new message for everyone glued to their phone: drop dead.