The city government of Lincoln, Nebraska wants its citizens to enjoy the benefits of cable competition. So it is allowing a second cable operator onto the playing field. And guess what? The incumbent cable operator isn’t happy about it.

The front of the Classé CT0M600 mono-block amp does double duty as faceplate and ventilation panel, with heat vented around the dove grey center papel. The 600-watt amp costs $6500 -- multiply that by five, seven, or whatever. To go with it you may want the SSP-800 pre-pro which is HDMI 1.4 compliant and goes for $9500. The company also showed the CP-800 stereo preamp with iPod-savvy USB input, jitter reduction, and bass management, the latter unusual and welcome in a two-channel piece. Price TBA.

I have been lucky enough to spend nearly all of my career explaining audio and video technology to readers. I'm just as lucky to have made Sound & Vision and its predecessor Home Theater my roost since 2001. But in a previous phase of my career, I divided my time between specialist publications like this one and other kinds: music and pop culture magazines, men's and women's and travel magazines and newspapers and more. It was while writing a story for Details that I racked my brain for a way to assert the relevance of audio technology to a young, hip, music-loving audience (not unlike myself at the time). Finally I stumbled upon the key that unlocked it all: the phrase closer to music. I've been using that phrase and its cousin—your relationship with music—ever since.

Why should lightswitches be boring? Legrand offers every possible color (or close) with the onQ series. I'll take the green switch against grey wall, bottom, third from right.