LATEST ADDITIONS

D&M Holdings, Inc., the Japanese consortium that owns Denon, Snell, Boston Acoustics, McIntosh, Escient, and Marantz, is apparently on the marketing block. Rumors to that effect have been circulating since mid-March, although the company's <A HREF=" http://www.dm-holdings.com/960_ENG_ASP.asp">website</A&gt;, in a press release dated 04/15/08, coyly says only: "D&M Holdings, Inc. notes that recent press reports concerning the potential sale of D&M shares is not based on any information provided by the company."

Truth is: I know diddly-squat about Frank Zappa. I've heard this and that, of course, and all I've heard has always been intriguing, but, for no good reason, I've just never taken the time to dive into Zappa's world. Perhaps it's because his world seems so enormous and wild and foreign. His world is full of barking pumpkins and utility muffins and Sprechstimme and other things I can neither imagine nor pronounce. I mean, even his name is strange. Like an exclamation, like a shot of electricity. Zappa! Say it three times, and something bad might happen. <i>Zappa! Zappa!</i> (No, don't!)

After noticing his own system performance dropping over time from AC power-related problems, reader Gus Kund wants to know if the power where you live is so bad that you've had to deal with it?

Tomorrow is <a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com">Record Store Day</a>. Celebrate responsibly. Celebrate appropriately. It will make you feel good.

"Something's wrong. It sounds confused."

<I>"Modern recordings, for all their glory . . . have conditioned audiences to expect an inhuman degree of performance accuracy, comparable to what a recording studio's editing team can produce by patching together the best moments from multiple takes."&mdash;James F. Penrose, </I>Wall Street Journal<I>, January 25, 2008</I>

I ran into Lauren on the way home last night. Lauren is from Leicester, England. She is twenty-five years old, friendly, bright, and beautiful. It was a little before 9pm, and we were both just coming in from work. She complained about her hours. Lauren would prefer a nine-to-five job. These eleven-to-eight hours are taking up the best bits of her day. But it's a job. She's had it for only two weeks, but she's already looking for another. She doesn't know what she wants to do. By thirty-five, she hopes to be retired.