LATEST ADDITIONS

I first met NHT co-founder <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//interviews/232/">Ken Kantor</A> in 1975 when we were both undergraduates at MIT. Kantor was sponsoring an extracurricular class entitled "Musical Ideas." The concept was to stick a dozen or so musicians in a classroom for free improvisation and hope to create music &#224; la Miles Davis' <I>Bitches Brew</I>. The result was a mess; although talented guitarist Kantor meant well, there was no common vision or consistency of musical talent. Nevertheless, I had a blast trying to simulate a tamboura drone with a Hohner Clavinet, phase shifter, and volume pedal.

We've all got a disc or two that we keep playing over and over, whether for system testing or the sheer love of the music. Which disc does it for you, and how many times have you listened to it?

From the current issue, Wes Phillips and John Atkinson tell the story of <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//features/714/"><I>Against the Dying of the Light</I>: the Second Cantus CD</A>. Phillips sets out to find the true genesis of this astonishing new recording from the Minnesota-based male-voice choir, while JA fills in the technical details.

Disc piracy is a profitable but increasingly risky business, with bootlegging-related shootings and armed robberies on the rise. Modern pirates have begun to imitate their sea-going ancestors, using force to acquire assets and territory.

How much does it cost to license DVD-Audio patents to create players or discs? That information was revealed last week when the <A HREF="http://www.dvd6cla.com">DVD6C Licensing Agency</A>, which represents the founders of the DVD Forum (formerly called the DVD Consortium) in the area of patent licensing, announced that it expects to start global licensing of essential patents for DVD-Audio and recordable DVD products on or about January 1, 2003.

Linn's early decision to develop hard-disk audio systems first got our attention when the Kivor project <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10645/">was announced</A> back at the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show. The Linn Kivor has now spent almost two years on the market, garnering a positive <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/497/">review</A&gt; from John Atkinson and a special "Editor's Choice" mention in this month's 2002 Products of the Year.

How much fun can you have with an audio component? Fun for me is having a Nakamichi BX-300 analog cassette deck running into Musical Fidelity's evolutionary, revolutionary CD-Pre<SUP>24</SUP> preamplifier, with the unit's <I>digital</I> output feeding the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/605/">Alesis Masterlink</A> hard-drive-based digital recorder, and being able to monitor the <I>digital</I> loop through the preamp once again in the analog domain.