Complicated

Even though I’m the editor of Stereophile, I sometimes struggle to get my audio system to play. It’s a little bit embarrassing. Just last night, I put on a record and there was no sound. I figured out the problem immediately: I’d forgotten to turn on the amplifiers. But the reason isn’t always so obvious.

Back in the day, our stuff was simple; it just . There were power switches, a volume control, a source-selector, maybe a Tape Monitor button. Turn it on, select the right input,