Wes Phillips <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/012306requiem/">wrote last week</A> about the closing of yet more music stores and what this means for the future of music. How are the stores in your area doing?
Much as I like the prospect of being able to grunt a heartfelt Je ne regrette rien immediately before expiring, I know there will be too many what-ifs and wish-I-hadn'ts to make that even remotely possible. But here is one missed opportunity that won't flash before me, because John Atkinson has granted me a second chance.
An amplifier producing nearly 400Wpc, weighing close to 100 lbs...from <I>Rotel</I>, of all people? Don't they know their <I>place</I> in the audio world? Next thing you know, Krell will start making integrated amplifiers! Oops—Krell <I>is</I> making integrated amplifiers...
Just in case you didn't know this when you bought the Parasound HCA-3500, it says on the cover of the owner's manual: "Designed in California, USA by John Curl." Described as an "audio design legend," an appellation with which he seems quite uncomfortable, John Curl has certainly been around the audio business longer than most. He's been employed by or has consulted for some of the biggest names in consumer and professional audio—including Harman/Kardon, Ampex, and Mark Levinson—and was the designer of at least two classic products: the Mark Levinson JC-2 preamplifier and his own <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/phonopreamps/640">Vendetta Research phono stage</A>, still considered by many people to be the best phono stage ever built.
<I>The British Library </I>vs<I> DRM:</I> The <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4675280.stm">BBC</A> reported February 3 that Dr Clive Field, the British Library's director of scholarships and collections, called the increasing restrictions of fair use by digital rights management (DRM) cause for concern.
<B>Editor's Note: </B>A reader recently complained that we publish too many obituaries and remembrances on this website. "I don't need to be reminded of my own mortality and depressed at the same time by reading all these death notices," he wrote. "I'm a baby boomer and I don't want to read about baby boomers—not their work, [not] their deaths."
<img alt="Chatting" src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsart/RR12.jpg" width="450" height="338" border="0" />
"If you have no catnip or kibble, you are dead to me."
"Honestly, I have no idea how those CDs wound up on the floor."
Jerome Harris sent in this tidbit, commenting, "Talk about ahead of the curve!"
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