LATEST ADDITIONS

Several <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10750/">class-action lawsuits</A> have been thrown against the music industry in the wake of its admission that it engaged in a price-fixing scheme known as Minimum Advertised Pricing, or MAP. The policy arose as a response to widespread CD price wars in the early 1990s that drove prices of some CDs below $10 each, and was intended to prevent mass-market merchandisers from offering CDs below cost as lures to pull customers into stores. The MAP policy was officially discontinued after the Federal Trade Commission <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10744/">reached a settlement</A> with the industry in May of this year.

It's bad enough for stores competing with each other for consumer loyalty&mdash;imagine how retailers must feel when the largest consumer-electronics company in the world decides to compete with you as well. This grim reality came true for dealers around the world last week, when Sony Electronics outlined its plans for <A HREF="http://www.sonystyle.com">SonyStyle.com</A&gt;, which the company describes as "an information-rich e-commerce website." The site is scheduled to be launched this fall.

Sometimes a product can take a while to reach its potential. As Jonathan Scull writes, "First, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/249/">Accuphase DP-75V CD player</A> took a full two weeks to warm up and pull its act together. If anything, it was <I>too</I> polite, warm, and over-the-top bloomy when I first lit it up. The '75 requires a <I>long</I> warm-up period. But wait . . . just wait for it." When the wait was over, J-10 filed his observations in detail.

The <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America</A>'s lawsuit against <A HREF="http://www.napster.com/">Napster</A&gt; may be an attack on one of its best friends, if results of a recent study by research organization <A HREF="http://www.jupiter.com/">Jupiter Communications</A> can be believed.

Although the Accuphase DP-75V looks like a conventional single-box CD player, it's actually a separate transport section and digital processor, each of which can be used independently. The transport is a 16-bit/44.1kHz mechanism, the datastream appearing on RCA coax and TosLink optical output connectors on the rear panel.

A merger announced Wednesday, July 12 by Columbia, Maryland&ndash;based <A HREF="http://www.usadr.com/">USA Digital Radio</A> and <A HREF="http://www.lucentdigitalradio.com/">Lucent Digital Radio</A> of Warren, New Jersey may hasten the creation of a unified US standard for terrestrial digital radio, according to industry analysts. The merger was approved by the National Radio Systems Committee, which is in charge of developing a set of digital radio specifications for the US. It was also backed by 15 companies involved in the rollout of digital radio, including Viacom Inc.'s Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and Clear Channel Communications, Inc.

Chip Stern notes that, "as often as not, it ain't the heat&mdash;it's the stupidity. When confronted by the smattering of self-referential dilettantes, acrimonious Internut wannabes, and obsessive-compulsive types who suck the air out of our aural fun-house, I find myself overcome with the desire to program my phaser for Clip." And fire away he does in "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/246/">Snobs, Slobs, & Marley's Ghost</A>," added to the Archives this week.