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Of course they should—wasn't that the core of George Smiley's appeal?James Bond may be fun to watch, but he'd never really last in the field.

Some audiophiles will only buy what they can hear, which poses a challenge if what you want is hundreds of miles away. How far have you traveled to audition or purchase an audio component? <P><I>Note to last week's vote commenters: due to a server move, we lost several days' worth of votes. We're all better now but we apologize if your comments didn't make it.</I>

When John Atkinson reviewed the Benchmark DAC1 USB digital/analog processor (watch for it in the January 2008 <I>Stereophile</I>), his test results raised some eyebrows at Benchmark. You'll have to read the review to discover what, but suffice it to say that Benchmark did some testing of their own and wrote us an interesting alert.

Conventional wisdom has it that large Japanese corporations are insular. But when it comes to audio, Sony bucks the conventional wisdom as much as it does in pretty much everything it does. In Europe, the company has long had an excellent reputation for producing loudspeakers using local design talent, so I wasn't surprised to see Sony launching a line of American-designed and -made speakers at <I>Stereophile</I>'s 1994 High-End Hi-Fi Show in Miami. <I>Stereophile</I> writer Barry Willis came away from that Show raving about the Sonys: "What we heard was gorgeous, absolutely beautiful: rich, warm, and deep, with a seductive midrange, a shimmering, delicate, grain-free top-end, and a soundstage to die for," he wrote about the sound of the three-way SS-M7 in Miami (footnote 1), 1 concluding that "WATT/Puppy performance is now available at Vandersteen prices in an American-made loudspeaker sporting a Japanese badge."

You know what's the first thing they teach you in dental school? Don't ever say "Oops!" Even if you stick one of those hooked teeth scrapers through the patient's cheek, you don't say "Oops!" "Don't move!"? Yes. "Oops!"? No. That's the big day-one lesson&mdash;and given the cost of medical malpractice insurance today, a damn good one.

The recording label Deutsche Grammophon, founded in 1898, boldly ventured into the 21<SUP>st</SUP> century on November 28 with a new <A HREF="http://www2.ham.deutschegrammophon.com/home
">online store</A> that eschews digital rights management (DRM) and offers MP3 downloads at 320kbps.

This week marks <I>Stereophile</I>'s 10<SUP>th</SUP> year online.