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Is a high-end music server the audio equivalent of polishing a turd?

Naim's new "statement" CD player, the CD555 ($20,300 by itself, $28,150 with PS555 power supply), breaks no new technological ground. Rather, in typical Naim fashion, it attempts to optimize 16-bit/44.1kHz CD performance by paying fanatical attention to the devilish details. It doesn't play the DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, or SACD formats, nor does it have a digital output—and it doesn't create an illusion of higher resolution by upsampling the data.

Finding myself in the Northwest on business, I reckoned I'd grab some Seattle dim sum with my nephew before heading my rental car south on I-5 to visit old friends in Oregon. "You live here," I said to Sean. "What are the good radio stations?"

An essay with the unassuming title of <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">"Thoughts on Music"</A> has certainly caused a furor over the last week. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was written by Apple's Steve Jobs or that he stated absolutely that digital rights management copy restriction systems "haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."

As Dave Barry is wont to say, <I>The Singing Neanderthals</I> would be a good name for a rock band, but it's a book by cognitive archeologist Steven Mithen, arging that language and music evolved from a common ancestor. He calls that ur-communication "Hmmmmm" (holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical, and memetic).

Huckleberry gets comfy on the NAS drive.

Distressing news: Vandal punks have defaced the Gaudi-designed dragon at Barcelona's Parque G&#252;ell.