Music among the Fairchildren

Pull down the shades, find a comfortable seat, and come with me on an imaginary journey to the year 1956. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket wins reelection, the United Methodist Church begins to ordain women, and a can of Campbell's tomato soup costs 10 cents.

- ALEX HALBERSTADT

Elvis Presley's two-week residency at Las Vegas's New Frontier Hotel and Casino is received so poorly by the middle-aged guests that Newsweek likens it to "a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party." And a Seattle couple gives birth to Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, who will become known professionally as Kenny G.

The hobby that will become "high-end audio" is still called plain old "audio." The top marginal tax rate is 91%, the US boasts more income equality than present-day socialist Sweden, and most of the country's top earners are not panic-room wealthy but merely rich. The prices of hi-fi gear reflect this: Two of the finest power amplifiers you can buythe McIntosh MC-60 and the Marantz Model 2 (both monophonic, of course)-retail for $198. That's about $2266 in today's dollars, and while certainly not cheap, these products are accessible to a far larger group of hi-fi enthusiasts than "the best" of today (including from McIntosh itself).

As it happens, perfectionist audio components come not only from the kind of niche producers that populate today's hobby but also from some of the largest companies in the world, including RCA, Western Electric, Philips, and Siemenswhich means that a sizable share of the brightest engineers are working on audio gear. Stereophile's first issue is still six years away, and hi-fi reviews appear not only in specialized publications but also in general-interest magazines like The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Saturday Review.