I don't care if it's a review of Final Audio's Opus 204 loudspeakers: quit it with the Norah Jones. Quit it with the Krall. Quit it with the Peyroux.

On the DARKO diddy index, the above three, and their analogues, wouldn't even register among the rest. For indicating musical taste, they're a television jingle. Everyone knows them. Everyone's heard them. Every tone-deaf, would-be gigalo has Jones cued into his Pioneer HiFi. Jones, et al. just prove how little you care, or know, about music. They prove how much you read other useless reviews, and forums. They prove that you drink alcohol-free beer, not whisky, and that for you, cheese is the stuff that peels away like shoestrings and can only be purchased from Costco.

I'll take this further: quoting Jones in a review of audiophile gear is like saying you love board games, and showing up to a board game geek fest with Risk, and asking for the dice in a game of Agricola.

Unless in jest, bringing up the above divas does nothing more than cheapen your essay. And, the collateral damage is first: the product you're reviewing; second: the rest of us audiophiles. Yes, we audiophiles are snivelling snots. Yes, we're afraid of science. Yes, we believe in magic and faeries and stuff. But from Shanghai to San Salvador, we neither need, nor can we as a marginalised aberration of modern society afford to listen to the same goddam music.

Of course, I'm looking at myself, too. Each of us has been guilty. But it's time to start doing things right. It's time to find music that isn't an incestuous homily to a broken imagination. The most recent homily to broken imagination was written by Ryan Cheong, of Hifi Senses, whose review of the Lehmann Audio Traveller kicks off like this:

Most striking are the mids, especially vocals, which are brought to the forefront and presented with incredible sweetness. Norah Jone's "Come Away with Me" had me shivering in its intimacy.

It's an easy read. Then again, most gushing audio reviews are. Most gushing audio reviews turn about on words like striking and intimacy. They might dare to note something ridiculously foretelling such: Accuracy sacrificed for musicality, under a Cons section. I can only imagine the next Cons section: Musicality sacrificed for accuracy.

Jones wept.