Jon Iverson

Judging from the e-mails we get, some folks wonder why Stereophile's website continues to cover the advance of such lo-fi formats as MP3 as well as the problems encountered by companies like Napster as they tangle with the music business. But consider this: a new study reports that the market for digital music players will grow to $6.4 billion in 2005—more than 34 times 1999 shipments—which is also nearly 80% of the $8 billion reported for sales of all audio products, including portables, from last year (see previous article).

The five layer stack of boards is a working prototype. The final design will fit flat in a typical chassis.

BTW, Even after seeing the company logo with the little fish in it, I still had to look it up: Mola-Mola is a name for the ocean sunfish.

Bryston's latest DAC was on hand, and yes all of those buttons on the front represent the number of input options! In addition to the normal SPDIF, optical and USB inputs are four HDMI inputs for hooking up computer-based, SACD, Blu-ray and other "modern digital sources".

Texas Instruments says it is on a quest to provide "high-performance audio solutions" for the home entertainment market. To prove it, last week the company announced its first stereo analog-to-digital converters supporting the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) specification and the Super Audio CD format (SACD).