LATEST ADDITIONS

In the age before recordings, music was a service business. Composers wrote for their patrons, and musicians performed for money. In the days since Edison's inventions, music has become a commodity business in which record companies stockpile large inventories and attempt to move them into the market of music lovers through a dense network of distributors and retailers. For established artists, the service aspect of music---playing for pay---now exists primarily to support the commodity business. For developing artists, public performance is a form of self-promotion to aid the search for a recording contract.

<B>VARIOUS ARTISTS: <I>Los Super Seven</I></B><BR> Radv/RCA Nashville 67689-2 (CD). 1998. Dan Goodman, exec. prod.; Steve Berlin, prod.; Dave McNair, eng.; Fred Rennert, Steve Gamberoni, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 41:36<BR> Performance <B>****?</B><BR> Sonics <B>****</B>

You might recall that ditty from childhood about the little engine that could (I <I>think</I> I can, I <I>think</I> I can, I <I>think</I> I can...). It's an apt metaphor for high-end audio. In traversing the aural sepulchers of last winter's Consumer Electronics Show and the summer's HI-FI Show, I routinely encountered one divine sound system after another. Yet while I never tire of transcendent sonics, eventually I become inured to the procession of celestial, cost-no-object speakers. It's like having a white-light experience, then returning to the gritty reality of life on earth, where for most of us cost is not merely the object, but the determining factor in finding an optimal balance among audio components.

The common wisdom of "bigger is better" doesn't always hold true in audio. High-end speaker systems, for example, have been getting bigger and smaller at the same time. Which trend do you favor?

The Internet is having a startling effect on radio, as evidenced by a new report released by <A HREF="http://www.arbitron.com">The Arbitron Company</A>, entitled "Arbitron Internet Listening Study: Radio in the New Media World." Arbitron concludes "that Internet broadcasting is a fast-growing medium which presents both challenges and opportunities for radio broadcasters."

For the past three weeks (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10291/">previous article</A>) we've been reporting on the troubled plight of <A HREF="http://www.diamondmm.com">Diamond Multimedia</A>'s new Rio portable MP3 audio player. Announced in grand fashion by Diamond several months back, the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) quickly set its sights on the device, and fired what it hoped would be a fatal shot in the form of an injunction. The RIAA appeared to have succeeded until last week, when US Central District Court California Judge Audrey Collins reversed her initial ruling from 10 days earlier of an injunction, paving the way for the product's release this month. Both the RIAA and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) are planning an appeal.