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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially opened today and we spent our time at the Alexis Park noticing even more exhibitors than last year. On hand were plenty of new products, companies, and high-rez software demos. Multichannel demos were in heard in several rooms—all to good effect.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially starts Thursday, but tradition has established Wednesday as the day several major consumer electronics manufacturers hold press events, hoping to get their messages across before the full-scale onslaught of dealers.

Last week's poll revealed a wide variety of musical meetings. But if you could choose to meet any musician or composer, no matter when he or she lived, who would it be? Why would that person be your choice?

From 1989 and 1992, John Atkinson reviews the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/744/">Celestion SL600si loudspeaker and the DLP600 digital equalizer</A>. "Given that conventional equalizers are quite correctly regarded in Audioland as being poor-sounding pieces of cheap, amusical junk," JA asks, "what I am doing reviewing what, for want of a better word, is an equalizer?"

In a world where brand is everything and making money is the bottom line, it should come as no surprise that if there's a buck to be made, any deal is possible. But who would have imagined, 30 years ago, that the bad boys and girls of rock'n'roll would be married to the then-much-scorned icon of safe, watered-down elevator music?

<B>STEVE TIBBETTS: <I>A Man About a Horse</I></B><BR> Steve Tibbetts, guitar, percussion; Jim Anton, bass; Marc Anderson, Marcus Wise, percussion<BR> ECM 1814 (CD). 2002. Steve Tibbetts, prod., eng. ADD. TT: 45:07<BR> Performance <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics ****&#189;</B>

If the devil is in the details, then Beelzebub has taken up residence in the collections of cables we use to connect our components. Reviewing the stuff is tough enough, but things are even more difficult for the average audiophile: Inevitably, the wire that sounds fabulous in the store or in your friend's system doesn't work worth a hoot in your own system, and you're left where you began. Equally inevitably, the wire that does work best carries a price more often seen in Tiffany's or Harry Winston. It's enough to drive a hi-fi nut to drink. So relax, pour yourself a nice glass of wine, and sit right back to hear the tale of Robert Lee and his amazing wires...