He designed and installed everything himself over six months in 1999. Then he learned the frustrating truth about home networking: Installation never ends. In June 1999, he junked the DVD jukebox, which he never used, and the following year, he replaced the entire audio system. But he still wasn't satisfied with the sound quality, so he started looking hard at the individual components. He soon discovered that while CDs and MP3s are optimized for a data rate of 44.1 kHz, most PC cards run at 48. Converting from one speed to the other was robbing Perlman of his crisp high end! Within weeks he tracked down a German-made card, the Delta DiO 2496, that's optimized for both rates, and his ears were soothed.

Perlman's an enthusiastic tour guide, with bulging sanpaku eyes and a wide grin. Opening a wooden cabinet in the living room, he reveals a Sony Vaio with a 160-gig hard drive filled with 15,000 MP3s — all of which he himself ripped from his collection of 1,000 CDs, he assures me. (To be honest, I'm less concerned with the legal issue than with the time it must have taken him to rip 1,000 CDs.) Exactly, I have neither the time nor the inclination to rearrange formats. Now if I could hire someone to do it for me.....