The answer is STRAIN DIAGRAM The corresponding square is house puzzle by Albert Lin The first component of the puzzle is a dropquote: the letters in each column are moved down into appropriate lower boxes to spell words reading across. Some of the squares are shaded gray; they associate a particular letter from each word with each of the words. Upon solving the dropquote, two things emerge: one is that each word is the name of a musical genre and the other is that the unused letters spell a complete sentence. The dropquote solution: GFUNK SPEEDMETAL DUB DEATHMETAL IDM HARDCOREPUN K GOATRANCE DRUMANDBASS PUNK TURNTABLISM SKA AF ROBEAT DANCEHALL HAIRMETAL HAPPYHARDCORE BREAKB EAT NWOBHM ACID PROGTRANCE GANGSTARAP FUNK GOTH ROCK TRIPHOP GHETTOTECH NEWWAVE DISCO HOUSE EBM The sentence left over (with spaces inserted for readability): SORT FILES BY TEMPO AND APPLY SUBSTITUTION TO GENRE BYTE The second component of the puzzle is listening to the audio files and identifying the genres of the two songs in each file. Each song appearing in the audio files should fall into exactly one of the genres appearing in the dropquote (see http://www.allmusic.com for a helpful genre reference). The point of the audio is that each genre is mixed into another one, so each file keys a substitution from the first genre's highlighted letter to the second genre's highlighted letter. Finally, following the directions of the sentence requires inspecting the ID3 tag of each mp3 file. ID3 tags usually identify artists and titles, but the tags in these files are empty except for the "Genre" field. Note that the genre field is represented by a single number from 0 to 255, i.e. one byte. One byte is also, conveniently, the right size for storing an ASCII character. [To be fully pedantic, we would note that it's really an octet, as bytes can be other than 8 bits long, but that's so rare that we won't worry about it.] We ignore the conventional meanings of the genre values and convert them to ASCII for substitution. When one orders the audio files by speed and applies the letter substitutions from before, the answer "STRAIN DIAGRAM" appears. (Drum and Bass has no highlighted letter, thus it becomes a null or a space in the substitution table) identifying the genres and corresponding letters: File# Genre 1 Genre 2 Letters 01 Dancehall Gangsta Rap C -> A 02 New Wave House W -> S 03 Prog Trance Breakbeat R -> T 04 Hair Metal Acid I -> A 05 Speed Metal Death Metal T -> M 06 Disco Funk S -> N 07 Hardcore Punk Happy Hardcore E -> A 08 Goth Rock Goa Trance O -> R 09 NWOBHM Dub N -> D 10 Punk Drum and Bass P -> _ 11 Trip-Hop G-Funk H -> G 12 Ghetto Tech Turntablism G -> I 13 Ska IDM K -> I 14 EBM Afrobeat M -> R ordering and performing the substitution: ~BPM File# ID3 genre Letters 95 11 87 (Revival) W -> S 97 01 82 (National Folk) R -> T 101 09 79 (Hard Rock) O -> R 110 06 67 (Psychedelic) C -> A 118 13 71 (Lo-Fi) G -> I 123 14 83 (Swing) S -> N 126 04 80 (Folk) P -> _ 128 02 78 (Rock & Roll) N -> D 135 03 75 (Polka) K -> I 145 08 73 (Acid Punk) I -> A 155 12 72 (Tribal) H -> G 170 10 77 (Musical) M -> R 180 07 69 (Showtunes) E -> A 200 05 84 (Fusion) T -> M The answer is "strain diagram." ... and, for the curious, the songs appearing in the audio clips: Acid: Wink - Higher State of Consciousness Afro-beat: Fela Kuti - Suffering And Smiling Breakbeat: DJ Icey Feat. Marlon - Bust Off The Bass D&B: Roni Size - Brown Paper Bag Dancehall: Shabba Ranks w/Krystal - Twice My Age Death Metal: Deicide - Let It Be Done Disco: KC & The Sunshine Band - That's The Way I Like It Dub: Mad Professor & Lee "Scratch" Perry - Dancing Boots EBM: Front 242 - Headhunter Funk: Kool & The Gang - Jungle Boogie G-Funk: Dr. Dre w/Snoop Dogg - Nuthin' But A "G" Thang Gangsta Rap: NWA - Fuck Tha Police Ghetto Tech: DJ Assault - Ass And Titties Goa Trance: Astral Projection - Kabalah (New Age Mix) Goth Rock: Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead Hair Metal: Poison - Nothin' But A Good Time Happy Hardcore: SY & Unknown Feat. MC Storm - Raver's Anthem Hardcore Punk: Minor Threat - I Don't Wanna Hear It House: Model 500 (Juan Atkins) - Starlight IDM: Autechre - Crystel NWOBHM: Judas Priest - Metal Gods New Wave: Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now Prog. Trance: Agnelli & Nelson - El Nino (Matt Darey Mix) Punk: Germs - Lexicon Devil Ska: Skatalites - Guns Of Navarone Speed Metal: Slayer - Angel Of Death Trip-Hop: Depeche Mode - Useless (Kruder & Dorfmeister Remix) Turntablism: DJ Q-Bert - 1991 DMC USA Championship Set "This is my favorite puzzle in the hunt. It's title is also, IMO, the best pun." All ages -> No ID required. - Ray Jones