It Begins: Anticipation
Ben awoke at dawn filled with hope and excitement – this was the day he was to kneel before the audio gods at Frank’s Sound Company and Show Rentals.

Ben had been waiting for this day for two years while he worked his way through the daunting challenges placed before him at the community college audio program.

He was ready to prove his worth and show his mettle to the gods, and he knew they would be impressed. There wasn’t a knob he didn’t know. There wasn’t an audio formula he couldn’t recite. There wasn’t a cool-guy piece of equipment whose alphanumeric name he couldn’t rattle off like machine-gun fire.

But even more impressive, he thought, would be his system test CD. Yes – he had IGY, Babylon Sisters, Toy Matinee, and some Diana Krall. He knew the gods would recognize one of their own when they saw this.

And last but not least, Ben would have a Sharpie and a greenie subtly placed in his right rear pocket in just a way that these gods would see, without being too obvious. He was ready.

Ben poured himself a bowl of Captain Crunch, doused it with 2 percent milk, and sat down to fortify himself for the coming gauntlet. Through the rhythmic munching and the heaping spoonful of goodness brought to his mouth every 6,500 milliseconds, he thought about the things he would need to know today.

In his mind’s eye, he visualized the Inverse Square Law in three dimensions. He silently calculated the impedance of a series/parallel loudspeaker cabinet loaded with six 8-ohm drivers. He recited to himself the resistance, both ways, of a 12AWG loudspeaker cable that was 50 feet long.

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