LATEST ADDITIONS

Good news: It's in the ventromedial nucleus (VMN) in the hypothalamus.<BR>Bad news: As an audiophile, I emanate vibes that shut it down.

My fellow blogger <A HREF="http://blog.hometheatermag.com/markfleischmann/">Mark Fleischmann</A> has taken his <I>Happy Pig's Hot 100 New York Restaurants</I> online. The listings are available by neighborhood, alphabetically, or by type of cuisine.

"I don't get why some audiophiles still think that saving data using a lossless compression scheme like FLAC or Apple Lossless sounds any different than an uncompressed CD file," says <A HREF="http://www.sonos.com">Sonos</A&gt; founder and VP of Sales and Marketing Thomas S. Cullen between bites of white fish shish kebab. "It's just mathematics, and the results are sonically identical, but you save half the space on your hard drive."

Back when everyone was rushing to convert LPs to CDs, the boxed set was a wondrous thing. The rush to "box" every artist propelled the record biz to some of their best Christmas seasons ever. It even inspired some labels to get off their then wealthy asses and dig around the vaults to find that most marvelous of record label offerings, the "bonus track."

You've heard it said that the early bird catches the worm, which is all well and good if you like worms. If you're more interested in music, you might want to follow the lead of Roy Gandy instead: He's the managing director of Rega Research, a 33¹/₃-year-old audio company that was the very last of its kind to enter the CD market. Rega's first CD player, the Planet of 1996, was a success in virtually every way.

There is a sweet spot in any manufacturer's lineup where minimum price and maximum performance meet. More expensive products in the line may offer higher fidelity, but the cost may not be commensurate with the improvement. For instance, VPI's HRX and Super Scoutmaster turntables cost more than their standard Scoutmaster model, and they perform better&mdash;but for my money, the sweet spot of VPI's line is the standard Scoutmaster, with or without such options as the outer clamp and Signature tonearm.

Each time I attend <I>Stereophile</I>'s annual Home Entertainment Show, I look forward to two things. The first is the opportunity to <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2006/060406reina/">perform</A&gt; classic and original jazz music with <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2006/060406rayjazzed/">John Atkinson</A> and <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2006/060406perkins/">Immedia's Allen Perkins</A>. The second is to seek out the most exciting new, affordable speakers to review over the following year. Both buttons were pressed for me quite admirably during HE2005 at the New York Hilton, but this time it was not an affordable speaker that most impressed me.