And now, they were home.
What came out made me drop my coffee.
I thanked him, placed them on my bookshelf, and forgot about them.
And for the first time, the music was perfect. Deep, warm, and utterly silent between the notes. Because the ghosts, it turned out, weren't in the speakers.
A month later, my main soundbar died. Desperate, I rummaged for a replacement and found the SP3s. I wired them to an old Sony receiver, pressed play on a streaming jazz playlist, and braced for thin, tinny disappointment.
Silence.