LATEST ADDITIONS

I admit to being a little surprised at the results of our <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?403">Discs or Downloads poll</A> a couple of weeks ago. More of you (65%) see a future for downloads as a viable music medium than I would have expected. As reader Mike Garner put it, "As bandwidth and storage continue to become cheaper, audiophile quality music downloads are inevitable." "Downloads save you trips to the shop or having to wait for shipping when you shop online. We'll soon be loading the data into a music server anyway," adds reader Ola Roll.

The <A HREF="http://www.he2005.com">Home Entertainment Show</A>, scheduled to take place in NYC April 28&ndash;May 1, is only weeks away! Throughout the Show, ticket holders can experience the finest consumer electronics and convergence products on the planet&mdash;PLUS enjoy a variety of live music performances by popular jazz, folk, rap, blues, and classical music recording artists.

As technology marches on, some of the old audiophile ways become lost arts. Do you still have the skills needed to set up and align a cartridge on a tonearm and turntable?

You can read all about an automobile, check its gear ratios, and ponder the engine's horsepower all you want—but until you put yourself in the driver's seat and take that baby out for a spin, you have no idea whether or not it's going to be fun to drive.

All the action in digital playback for the past seven years has taken place in separate transports and digital processors. Nearly all high-end manufacturers have focused their skills on perfecting the individual elements of the digital playback chain&mdash;transports and processors&mdash;rather than on designing integrated CD players.

Just look at the dates and you'll see a legacy that essentially spans the entire history of electrical music reproduction. That's fitting. In his career&mdash;or more properly, many careers&mdash;Irving M. ("Bud") Fried all but embodied that era.

If you're an audiophile&mdash;and let's face it, who else would be reading this&mdash;then you know what <I>any</I> hard-core audioweenie would do when visiting a strange city. Visit the hi-fi shops, of course.