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The most common complaint about record companies: CD prices are too high. In fact, many blame Napster's runaway success on the insistence of "greedy labels" on pricing discs at $15 or higher. Apparently BMG Direct, a division of <A HREF="http://www.bmg.com/">BMG Entertainment</A>, has put two and two together and found it equals $9.99.

Mastering engineer Denny Purcell let out a long sigh. "Does anyone in this room really believe that any of this is going to do any good?" he asked. Of the eight or nine people&mdash;each with decades of experience in the music and/or audio industries&mdash;hanging out at Georgetown Masters Studios in Nashville for SDMI's Phase II listening tests, no one said "Yes." The consensus: The watermarking issue will probably be dead and forgotten within a year.

Following on the heels of its <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10863/">announcement last week</A> of the first commercially available DVD-Audio disc (<I>Swingin' for the Fences</I>, by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band), <A HREF="http://www.silverlinerecords.com">Silverline Records</A> says that Aaron Neville will become the first major artist to release an album in the format. Silverline expects that, on October 24, Neville's solo album <I>Devotion</I> will be released on DVD-A. The disc will also include audio tracks compatible with standard DVD players.

Using a digital code, or "watermark," has been proposed for SACD and DVD-Audio recordings to help control what consumers can and cannot do with the new discs. The downside is that some engineers feel that the watermark, though subtle, might be audible at times. Does this bother you?

After a difficult gestation, DVD-Audio may finally be moving toward becoming a market reality now that a major record label has stepped forward to support it. <A HREF="http://www.wmg.com/">Warner Music Group</A> (WMG) has issued several recordings in the new format, covering a range of genres. DVD-A is "the most significant industry format launch since the introduction of the CD nearly 20 years ago," according to an October 2 WMG press release.

Warner Music Group may have just announced its first DVD-Audio titles (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10861/">related story</A>), but an upstart independent label is claiming the first DVD-A discs actually available for sale. In an attempt to establish itself as the leader in the new DVD-Audio format, 5.1 Entertainment Group's <A HREF="http://www.silverlinerecords.com/">Silverline Records</A> says it has begun shipping the first commercially available 24-bit/96kHz DVD-Audio disc, <I>Swingin' for the Fences</I>, by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band.

You want to grow your market, you've got to plant some seeds. The <A HREF="http://www.ce.org/">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA) is doing just that with the <A HREF="http://www.buzznet.org/">BuzzNet 2000</A> tour, a traveling educational event that will hit college campuses beginning this month, as reported <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10859/">last week</A>.