LATEST ADDITIONS

As the cost of data storage has continued to plunge, some industry pundits (well, www.stereophile.com's Jon Iverson) have predicted that the next step in adding value to them would be to give the devices away, but sell the music or data they contain. On March 10, online music label <A HREF="http://www.magnatune.com">Magnatune</A&gt; and Samsung spin-off <A HREF="http://www.hanamicron.com/">Hana Micron</A> fulfilled that prediction with a product called the TunePlug: It's a reusable USB flash memory drive that comes loaded with 10 complete albums from Magnatune artists in MP3 file format.

Will the future of audio distribution be dominated by discs or downloads? Will we always have both?

Multichannel audio has its share of fans and detractors. Often, a well-executed example of a new technology can be the most effective tool to attract new fans. Have you heard an impressive multichannel recording? If so, what is it?

"No!"

Five years after the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/164">launch</A&gt; of the audiophile's dream medium, Super Audio CD, the format remains stalled in the market.

Researchers at the International Center for Hearing and Speech Research (ICHSR) have found that age-related hearing loss may be all (or at least mostly) in your head rather than a problem with your ears.

As rules of thumb go, this one is pretty infallible: By the time we've heard about it, a trend's hippest participants will think it's on the decline. That means that <I>mashups</I>, or the manipulation of the musical genetic material of several different songs to create a new song, may be on their way out, because <I>we've</I> become infatuated with them.