John Sciacca

For all of the benefits the digital revolution has brought to music - like streaming, unprecedented portability, and the ease of sorting and managing large collections - some people see it as not only a travesty but also a threat. Granted, these are usually the same people who lament the supposed lack of any advancement in audio quality since the birth of vinyl. But do they have a point?

The first thing my wife told me when I returned from the Consumer Electronics Show in January was that our eight-year-old garage-door opener was broken. When it still produced a banshee-like screech after a liberal dose of WD-40 - the universal cure-all for ailing mechanical devices - I decided we needed a new opener.

People have been making New Year's resolutions since calendars were first invented. "I'm going to alphabetize my CD collection." "I'll use the Soloflex as more than a clothes hanger." And the biggie - "I'm going to get a job that I really enjoy."