LATEST ADDITIONS

The <A HREF="http://www.riaa.org">RIAA</A&gt; foresees that digital audio broadcasting (DAB) will represent a fundamental change in the radio industry. "It is not just a means of offering higher quality broadcast sound. DAB could transform radio into a vehicle for the distribution of huge amounts of information in digital form, including recorded music," says the trade organization. As a result, the group is supporting regulatory restraints on digital audio broadcasting (DAB) in reaction to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Inquiry (NOI) regarding DAB content control.

The proposed merger of the music divisions of Sony Corporation and Bertelsmann AG may win approval from European Union regulators, according to reports from Brussels on June 18.

On June 16, the US <A HREF="http://www.cpsc.gov">Consumer Product Safety Commission</A> (CPSC) announced a product recall in voluntary cooperation with equipment manufacturer and distributor <A HREF="http://www.linn.co.uk/">Linn</A&gt;. The notice asks that consumers stop using the recalled products immediately, unless otherwise instructed.

An argument could be made that most speakers are designed to sound best with their grilles intact, while others might reason that anything in front of a tweeter has got to be bad. Reader Gerald Neily wants to know if you prefer to listen with your speaker grilles on or off.

I recently bought a turntable, the first I've owned in about 15 years. I had sold my vinyl collection&mdash;a mix of classic rock, early 1980s pop, and the odd jazz or classical LP&mdash;when I was in grad school, for economic reasons: I needed the money for rent, or food, or beer, or something. Nor do I know what happened to my old plastic turntable; more than likely, I left it curbside for anyone strolling by who was able to appreciate its value.

When PR guy Adam Sohmer first told me about the Fosgate Audionics FAP V1, I thought that the impressive-looking device would be the first all-tube preamp-processor&mdash;heck, the first tube <I>anything</I>&mdash;in my multichannel system. Then I looked closer at the user's manual I'd downloaded from Fosgate's website. Hmmm. No Dolby Digital, no DTS&mdash;just Dolby Pro Logic. Of course, the FAP V1 is Jim Fosgate's signature expression of Dolby Pro Logic, and I guess that counts for something. But the more I thought about it, the more interesting a prospect the FAP V1 seemed.

It's common to read ads for new audio hardware that crow about "revolutionary" breakthroughs in sound performance, and that's how Velodyne crowed about their new Digital Drive DD-18, servo-controlled, powered 18" subwoofer. The ads suggested that the DD-18 can be digitally equalized to one's room with a resultant in-room frequency response of 20-200Hz, &#177;3dB.