Once upon a time, there was an audiophile, although some would call him an audiophoole. One day, as he (it's almost always a he) was out shopping for new audio equipment (something he thought about a lot) he came across a unique audio product known as the money onion. Now this money onion could only be purchased with said purchase tied to his bank account. The money onion worked like this, any time you wanted to hear an improvement (something the audiophile wanted badly) in sound, all you would do is peel back some of the money onion, and as layers of money were shed off from his bank account, the sound got better and better!
Finally, the audiophile realized he never had to buy another audio product ever again! All he had to do was take layers off the money onion and voila, sound improvement! But sadly, there was a flaw in using the money onion--it's center could never be reached!
The audiophile stripped layer after layer, and as he did, his bank account got smaller and smaller, but somehow it didn't matter to him that he would never get to the center of the money onion, even though in his heart of hearts he longed for what reaching the center would sound like. Audiophiles would even call this the "phantom center", for obvious reasons.
In the mean time, there was that thrill every time a layer was removed. Each improvement in sound was so fulfilling, he wanted to tell all his non audiophile friends, did you hear that! Wow! Fantastic! But they didn't hear what he was hearing and scoffed at his waning bank account. Only his audiophile friends knew what he was talking about, but they had their own money onions and seemed immersed in their own layers being removed.
It was in this way that the money onion brought a tear to the audiophile's eye. There was something about the sound, THE SOUND, THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOUND! LAYERS!
Yes, the money onion was considered by many to be the greatest single audiophile product ever made--until they came out with the money onion II.
But that's another story.
