I'm always on the lookout for recommendables for the common man - the music lover/ess who wants performance for a relative song. Let's face it, most must successfully juggle far more important monthly bills than audio stuff. If audio gets too expensive, it's either terminally postponed or handled with a quick'n'dirty trip to the local Circuit City. However, the speciality market of late hasn't been exactly stingy with high-performance value-priced offerings. Just think gain clones, T clones, the Onix/Melody SP3, the Easter Electric fare, the perennial bedrock of Music Hall and Epos, ProJect turntables, Rocket loudspeakers and more. It's as though the "make one deep margin sale to pay rent for 6 months" mentality of audio pricing has created a vacuum. Sufficient suck factor has built up to now fill itself up with champions of the opposite tactic - sell more at lower margins. This rebuilds trust and accessibility in the sector that needs it most: the so-called entry-level. Here newbies brave the transition from cheap & cheerful to serious but aren't prepared to throw reason to the wind. Enter the HT-88s in all their massive aluminum blackness, with 4/8/16-ohm taps 'round back, 90 volts on the plates and 80mA of bias current. Granted, I haven't received the review loaners yet so you could call the above nothing more than a puff/fluff piece (but they're already on the FedEx truck to Taos). Alas, having personally reviewed Hyperion's flagship to affix a Blue Moon Award on 'em, I'm predisposed to believe in the substance of this new offering here. What seems to be on offer looks remarkable enough to warrant a teaser notice - in case you're in the market (tubes, monos, 18 watts) and prepared to spend in excess. I'll tell you more when these 13.4" square and 7.8" tall beasts actually get here (I'm told the Plexi casings in the above images aren't tube shields but shipping protection). And this isn't vaporware, by the way - these monos are in full production and have been shipping for four months.

About Hanuman's hairy cheeks: Once Shiva and Parvati, ever the adventurous lovers, decided to transform themselves into monkeys and indulge in amorous games in the dense Himalayan forests. During a climactic moment, the seed of Shiva found its mark and impregnated Parvati. Since they were in simian form, it was but natural that the offspring born of such a union too would be a monkey. Not desiring to go against the laws of nature, Shiva directed the wind god Vayu to carry his semen from Parvati's womb and deposit it into that of Anjana - a female monkey, who at that very moment was praying for a male child.

Another slightly variant version of this story in the Shiva Purana states that when Vishnu once disguised himself as the heavenly beauty Mohini, her charms so impressed Shiva that he could not restrain his seed. Vayu then carried the seed and deposited it into Anjana's womb. There was no question of Shiva's potent discharge resulting in an offspring less than extraordinary and the child conceived under such exceptional circumstances

was bound to be especial, and so it was. The resulting bundle of joy was none other than Hanuman, one of the most celebrated and worshipped figures in Indian thought. Two exceptional traits further marked his birth. The first was that unlike ordinary children, Hanuman was born wearing a loincloth. This was an early pointer to his life-long pursuit of a celibate, almost ascetic lifestyle. The other significant occurrence was the presence of elaborate earrings adorning his ears. The latter has an interesting piece of legend explaining it.

At the time of Hanuman's birth, the undisputed leader of the monkey-world was Vali, a strong and powerful ape. When Vali came to know that Anjana was pregnant with a child who was bound to develop into a powerful rival, he decided to end matters in Anjana's womb itself. He created a missile using five metals: gold, silver, copper, iron and tin. When the unsuspecting mother was asleep, he directed the missile into her womb. A normal child may have succumbed to this dastardly attack, but not one born of Shiva's fiery seed. The missile as soon as it touched Hanuman's body melted, and transformed into a pair of earrings. Thus wearing the trophies of his first battle, fought while still in his mother's womb, Hanuman gloriously entered this world.


With such auspicious myths surrounding Hanuman's birth, let's hope that the genesis of Hyperion's HT-88s was likewise blessed with "unusually potent missiles"...