LATEST ADDITIONS

While walking home from the office the other day I passed a gleaming, perfectly detailed Harley-Davidson, lightly customized, as many are these days. I didn't stop and drool, but I couldn't unsnap my eyes from it. As I drew parallel to that hawg, a Ricky Martin look-alike threw his leg over the saddle and thumbed the starter. No, you don't have to be a tattooed, beer-gutted redneck anymore to rear up and <I>slam</I> down on a kick-starter of one of those beasts. These days, it's all done with the push of a button. Dude.

From the days of Les Paul's chum Mary Ford, through Amanda McBroom and Jennifer Warnes, right up to Patricia Barber, audiophiles have been fascinated, and sometimes obsessed, with female vocals. I nominate to membership in that select sorority another Patricia, in this case O'Callaghan, whose third CD has just been released worldwide by her new label, Teldec.

Have we come a long way baby, or are we still struggling to get out of the chute? Do you think audio reproduction has made much progress in getting listeners closer to the real thing in the last 20-30 years?

One of the dirty little secrets of the recording business is that some of its most precious assets are slowly self-destructing. In one example, a popular mastering tape supplied by Ampex to recording studios during the '70s and early '80s has been found to prematurely shed its oxide coating at an alarming rate due to poor quality control of the binding agents that hold the magnetic particles to the Mylar.

Where does "fair use" end and piracy begin? Can consumers have open access to digital information and entertainment while respecting the rights of the creators of such content? Is there an inevitable collision between consumers and the rights of intellectual property owners? Can a happy balance be found in a world of high technology?

Who says classical music is having trouble finding a contemporary audience? According to the latest <A HREF="http://www.arbitron.com/">Arbitron</A&gt; webcast ratings, for December, 2000, classical music and internet-only webcaster <A HREF="http://www.beethoven.com">Beethoven.com</A&gt; ranked number one with the most aggregate tuning hours (ATH) for the month. ATH describes the sum total of all hours that listeners tune to a given channel.

With the April issue of <I>Stereophile</I>, the "Recommended Components" list is again on its way to subscribers' audiophile homes around the world. But there has always been controversy surrounding the popular feature. George Reisch explores the problem in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//thinkpieces/322/">"Recommended Components"&mdash;the St. Hubbins' Syndrome!</A>