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As John Atkinson points out in his "As We See It" from last month, Trumpets to the Back of Me?, there appears to be a long, hard road ahead for audiophiles as record labels struggle to make something out of the multi-channel future. As JA puts it, "The last thing I want is to have trumpets and drums attacking me from behind, yet almost without exception, that is what record producers seem to feel is an essential part of the DVD-Audio and SACD experiences."

Next, we have JA's 1996 examination of the $9495 Mark Levinson No.31.5 Reference CD transport. Atkinson sets the scene: "If there is a component category that causes the 'objectivists' in the audio community to splutter uncontrollably over their cups of herbal tea, it is the high-end CD transport. For in their 'bits is bits' world, all a transport is required to do is recover the digital data from a disc."

Finally, we have Peter van Willenswaard exploring one of the great audio riddles in Tubes Do Something Special from September, 2000. As van Willenswaard writes, "Most people who now listen to tube amplifiers know from experience that a tube amp of a given measured power output sounds louder than its nominally identical transistorized equivalent . . . there is a directly measurable explanation for the discrepancy." Included are reader letters and the followup from June, 2001.