Ken C. Pohlmann

Saturday night at Molasses Junction. Good food. Well, bar food. And spirits, lots of spirits. There are Harleys parked outside in the gravel lot. I pity the fool who backs his Prius into one of those hogs. Some attorneys and doctors ride Harleys on weekends. I scrutinize the gentlemen and ladies who are riding these Harleys and try to imagine any of them giving me an appendectomy. Uh, no. That’s never going to happen.

My table is lively with conversation. You already know how the thread goes. The government is messed up, our bosses grind on us all week long, the new Corvette blows the doors off the old Corvette, college football is way better than pro football. Then we talk about man caves. The mood intensity clicks up a notch. Man caves are serious business. Who has 4K? Who doesn’t? The question of cost comes up...

It is the patriotic duty of every American man, woman, and child to go shopping for a TV on Black Friday. After spending most of Thursday up-armoring me and my vehicle, I went to a Best Buy on Friday morning. Two observations: First, I lived to tell about it. Second, it takes about 20 minutes for the ambulance to drive from the Best Buy to the nearest ER.

Spinal Tap band member Nigel Tufnel is showing his equipment to director Marty DiBergi and points out that the volume controls on his Marshall guitar amp go to 11. “It’s one louder,” he helpfully explains. DiBergi asks why not just make a “10” setting louder. A confused Tufnel replies, “These go to 11.”

The scene is renowned and has entered the popular culture as a way to point out needless excess, and particularly excess that demonstrates confusion, or otherwise serves no purpose. It’s my opinion that some audio technology now has knobs that go to 11.

Congratulations! You, the president of a multinational audio technology company, are a man among boys. You are a captain of industry, a titan of corporate prowess. Under your command, your dozens of factories and thousands of employees toil to bring forth wondrous new products. And what wonders they are—your portable CD players are the best of the best. People line up to buy your cutting edge in-dash head units. In a few months, your keynote will blow away the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show. Then you wake up, alarm buzzing. It's 2014. Hitting the snooze button isn't an option.