When the final cannon blast faded, he sat in silence.

The cannons of the 1812 Overture exploded from the truck’s speakers. The bass rattled the windows. The brass section soared so clearly that Sheldon could hear the spit in the trumpet player’s mouthpiece.

“The difference is measurable,” Sheldon said, pulling out a graph he’d drawn on graphing paper. “Here you can see the frequency response curve—”

He climbed out of the truck, carefully coiled the extension cord, and went inside to finish his spaghetti. The meatball was cold. He ate it anyway. Because even cold, it was still lossless.

Sheldon pushed his plate away, offended. “FLAC. Free Lossless Audio Codec. It’s a digital audio format that compresses without losing any data. Unlike the MP3s you plebeians listen to on your tin-can earbuds.”