LATEST ADDITIONS

Reader Doug Cline just bought a new La-Z-Boy and likes the way it feels, but wonders about its effect on the sound. What do you prefer for listening?

Last Month, music labels, distributors, and retailers met in Las Vegas for the 41st annual <A HREF="http://www.narm.com">National Association of Recording Merchandisers</A> convention to wrestle with several new issues wrought by the digital age. NARM Chairperson Rachelle Friedman set the tone for the event when she stated in the keynote address that "for the music industry, the 21st century and the impact of the Internet have already thrust themselves upon us."

Every week we get an e-mail or two from online readers begging for a state-of-the-art set of searchable weblinks on the <I>Stereophile</I> website. Starting this week, your e-prayers have been answered. The <I>Stereophile</I> website now sports one of the Internet's most comprehensive set of qualified audio and video links---as of last count, they number more than 2500. The database is searchable in a variety of ways, and also groups similar categories.

We posted an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10415/">update</A&gt; on Peter Belt and his activities earlier in the month, but the saga began many moons ago. If you're curious about where it all began, or just need to know more, then J. Gordon Holt's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/110/">L'Affaire Belt</A>" is for you. Stranger than fiction? Guaranteed.

The Grateful Dead were the most enduring and most worshipped of all the rock groups who originated in the San Francisco scene of the 1960s. The Dead spawned Deadheads, a global family of loyal followers, who lived for the communal high of Dead concerts, where recording by fans was encouraged by the band and its management. Deadheads continue to share recordings of those concerts through a vast network, including several websites. Until recently, at least two of the sites had been providing MP3 transmissions at no charge.

An audio system is not a system unless you hook it all together. How do you do it?

In an aggressive move into the used audio equipment market, New York retailer <A HREF="http://www.harveyonline.com">Harvey Electronics</A> announced last week that the company will begin to sell used audio products and special purchases of new merchandise on <A HREF="http://www.ebay.com">eBay</A&gt;, an online auction site, beginning June 1, 1999. The company also recently announced that it will sell merchandise through other website partnerships.