LATEST ADDITIONS

On July 11, Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas downloaded the 100 millionth song purchased from Apple's <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/">iTunes music store</A>. Britten spent 99&#162; for "Somersault (Dangermouse remix)" by Zero 7 and, in exchange, won a 17" PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, and a gift certificate entitling him to 10,000 iTunes songs (the approximate capacity of a 40Gb iPod). As Apple counted down to 100 million, it also gave "special 20GB iPods" to the consumers who downloaded each 100,000th song between 95 million and 100 million.

Since it has been five years since the debut of SACD, one might think that the debate as to where it fits within the audiophile food chain would have been put to rest. But as with most things audio, reality conspires to make rational comparisons between formats tough. One is never sure if two releases on different formats have been rendered from the same source, or, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11649/">as we discovered</A> with the recent <I>Dark Side of the Moon</I> hybrid SACD, from completely different masters.

<I>Stereophile</I>'s John Atkinson teams up with world-renowned recording engineer Tony Faulkner to create a landmark Mozart recording that has just been released simultaneously on hybrid SACD/CD, and LP. In <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/804k622">Project K622</A>, JA recounts the entire process, noting, "The upbeat is the most magic moment in classical music making."

Reader Gerald Neily is curious about the control issues our readers have. He would like to know if you use a remote with your audio system, and if so, how do you use it?

When we last heard from Englishman <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/990paravicini">Tim de Paravicini</A>, whose <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/404ear">EAR 890</A> amp I reviewed in <I>Stereophile</I>'s April 2004 issue, the veteran audio designer suggested that he could make a transistor amplifier equal in performance to any of his successful tube designs. Whatever else it may be, the new EAR 324 is my first chance to test that claim: a stereo phono preamplifier without a single tube in sight. It isn't TdP's first all-solid-state product: That would be the line-plus-phono EAR 312 preamplifier, introduced to no small fanfare a little over three years ago. For all intents and purposes, the 324 is a standalone version of the phono section of that $18,000 flagship: The designs are virtually identical&mdash;excepting, of course, their casework and power supplies.

"Commoditization leads to the death of a specialty industry!" Hearing this at what I'd anticipated would be a sleep-inducing seminar on marketing, I pricked up my ears. The speaker was management guru Tom Peters, author of the best-selling <I>In Search of Excellence</I> and <I>The Pursuit of WOW!</I>. "Once your product is commoditized, all that is left to compete on is price," Peters continued, as I frantically scrawled down his comments, "and a small company will <I>always</I> lose to the big guns on price!"

The upbeat is the most magic moment in classical music making. Before the conductor brings down his baton for the downbeat, anything and everything are possible in the musical journey that is about to begin. And the upbeat to Mozart's sublime Clarinet Concerto that conductor Robert Bailey was about to give in London's Henry Wood Hall last November gave me an extra frisson&mdash;as producer of the recording sessions, I would have to pronounce instant judgment on everything I was about to hear.