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The first half of the fiscal year has been generally kind to many Japanese electronics manufacturers, most of whom released financial reports at the end of October.

Brian Damkroger has a wonderful moment or two as he auditions the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/697/">VAC Renaissance Signature Mk.II preamplifier</A>. As BD explains, the right musical situation can trigger those long-lost memories . . . .

We all know that women generally have better hearing than men and enjoy music at least as much as men do, but women are conspicuously absent from every segment of the high-end audio scene. The vast majority of high-end companies are owned by men, and any head count of female designers, retailers, reviewers, or consumers will yield a pitifully small number. High-end audio is a man's, man's, man's world.

During the week of October 14, <A HREF="http://www.thielaudio.com">Thiel Audio Products</A> president Kathy Gornik completed an unprecedented triple play.

"We are now well past the era in which every review of digital playback equipment had to begin with an apology for the medium," writes Thomas J. Norton. As a case in point, TJN takes the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/692/">Mark Levinson No.37 CD transport & No.36S D/A converter</A> out for a couple of spins.

Recent news from Universal Music Group should bode well for the SACD format. It's not exactly a flood, but the world's largest music company finally made good on the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11238/">promise</A&gt; it made at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and announced last week its first Super Audio CD (SACD) titles to be released in the United States.

Although the <A HREF="http://www.tweeter.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group</A>'s rate of expansion has slowed, it shows no sign of stopping. The Canton, MA electronics retailer will open six new stores during the month of November.