I'm hardly the first reviewer to get my mitts on this do-everything Polk iPod docking station, and yeah the official name is a mouthful, so "I-Sonic ES2" will do just as well here on in. The ES2 is a direct outgrowth of the original ES which lacked an iPod dock. We all remember those pre-Apple-monopoly days with fondness, but the truth is, if you don't iPod dock, you don't rock. And one the thing I want you to come away with from this review is that the Polk I-Sonic ES2 really rocks!

Ever since its launch in 1996, Revel has pursued a no-compromise approach to speaker design and manufacturing. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the brand is part of megaconglomerate Harman International, which boasts some of the best speaker-development facilities in the world. For example, Revel engineers have access to multiple anechoic chambers and Harman's Multichannel Listening Lab that allows blind-listening tests, shuffling several speakers around for each test run so the effect of their positions in the room is randomized and thus prevented from affecting the results.

Up until some dreadful time today, Connecticut radio station 104.1 played new alternate rock music and did it very well. Not enough of a market to justify formulaic shock-jocks, the former owner, the great, the diseased, the much-maligned Clear Channel radio conglomerate ran 104 WURH like a great indie radio station. No live DJ's, in fact, the few radio breaks they took between songs mostly made fun of the other stations (many of whom they owned). WURH was where I could hear the Killers, the Kings of Leon, Cage the Elephant and a bunch of stuff I didn't care for either, but it was all new for the most part and who isn't at least a little sick of classic rock at this point! Once a week, they played an oldie like that dreadful Four Non-Blondes song whose title I paid a hypnotist to make me forget, but for the most part, radio 104 was always fresh!

The Black Crowes, $hake Your Money Maker (LP, DEF American Records, 1990), picked up during my first trip to Las Vegas in a used record store on Sahara. Even 20 years ago, The Black Crowes were doing what bands like the Rolling Stones seemed incapable of anymore. This hard-driving rock has no missteps and no end to the catchy tunes. Singer Chris Robinson's distinctive gravelly voice, a cross between Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger, gets stellar backup from the two guitars, bass and drum line-up that's as tight as it is raw.