In the Halloween spirit, I hired a ghost-writer to post this months segment of HiFiFreq. The copy he/she/it (please, let's not sexualize the spirit world also) turned in was all: "BOO!" and "Woooo - WOOOoooo"; Provocative and windy rubbish filled with ephemeral descriptors bemoaning the current state of High Fidelity. Having established an imaginary rapport by virtue of a common enemy (the cynical ghost) with you the reader, I continue:  Whilst hunting snarks ( a rather convoluted way to convey the mysterious nature of following or seeking something that remains as yet undefined, but whose allure is more than sufficient to justify continued tracking) sometimes a spooky feeling is induced- I imagine mythic tales of the golden hind evoke a similar haunted glade, shadowed in wraiths of fog and vivid musty odor...a sense of being led as a willing participant down into a darkening valley-lured by sirens and a hunch that unseen riches are just over the next rise, and "Hey, it looks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed right over there..."  More plainly put, a Craigslist inquiry led to a day trip foraging the innards of a vintage radio repair shop and it's innumerable treasures; one of which being the vocabulary of the proprieter. I imagine this was quite like what heaven must be: a tinkerer's paradise with a nearly unlimited assortment of transformers, a box of old vacuum tubes, and a nearby field where truckers put hand-held citizens-band mics out to pasture. I skip through these Elysian-fields, a butterfly-net wielding idiot in full sunlight, un-ashamed at the joy I feel hefting a vintage speaker with what is surely a 15lb AlNiCo magnet. I'd love to tell you that I filled the car with vintage treasure and handed the owner a fiver, but that would be misleading provocative windy rubbish filled with ephemeral descriptors glorifying a bygone era, a golden age of audio and broadcast electronics and their concomitant technology. I did buy the cutest little tube amp I've ever seen (okay, the Z-vex Nanowatt MIGHT beat it out by a smidge), and a fixer-upper receiver that shall for now remain anonymous.
And, the owner gifted me a couple of coke-bottle shape 5U4 rectifier tubes for an amp I'm restoring and suggested I come back soon. I've started compiling a list...

P.S. As I finish writing this I hear two owls hooting in the backyard. Perfect! Translated, they tell me that the state of HiFi is exactly as it should be.