LATEST ADDITIONS

Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, federal law limited broadcasters to ownership of only four radio stations in any one market, and a maximum of 40 nationwide. The act loosened regulations to allow ownership of as many as eight stations in a single market, and hundreds nationally.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Two music-industry giants---<A HREF="http://www.bmg.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group</A> and Seagram Ltd.'s <A HREF="http://www.unistudios.com/">Universal Music</A>---have agreed to pool their resources in a joint Internet venture. <A HREF="http://www.getmusic.com/">GetMusic</A&gt;, as the website will be known, will sell compact discs in direct competition against traditional retailers, other Internet music services, and mail-order music clubs.

As first reported April 8 in <A HREF="http://www.eetimes.com"><I>EETimes</I></A&gt;, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A&gt; has made known its plans for the first generation of Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) players, to be released in Japan this May. For the last several months, Sony has been suggesting that the SACD format would be going head to head with the competing DVD-Audio format, despite overtures from the DVD-Audio Working Group to join in a single all-encompassing specification.

Last week, The <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> released its year-end anti-piracy statistics, which it says reveal an increase in the number of counterfeit and pirate CDs and CD-recordables confiscated in 1998. "We've had tremendous success this year with our anti-piracy initiatives," said Frank Creighton, senior vice president and director of anti-piracy. "Between the many CD plants around the country adopting better business practices to the scores of universities signing up for our copyright education program---we're making strides on all fronts."

S<I>tereophile</I> magazine is pleased to announce that senior contributing editor Jonathan Scull has joined its full-time staff as senior editor. As of April 19, 1999, he will be based at parent company Emap Petersen's office on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan's Flatiron district.

Last month (click here for previous Fine Tunes) I tipped you on how to check the AC plug orientation for transformer current leakage—the best sound is often found at the lowest voltmeter reading. Roger Skoff of XLO suggests another technique that's worth passing on to you, if only because the imagery is so . . . piquant: Leave the speaker cables hooked up and pull the interconnects from the power amplifier. Turn it on and "stick your head in the speaker," as Roger puts it, checking for the level of hum. (Imagine a pair of bony audiophile legs waving crazily out of the bell of an Avantgarde Acoustics horn speaker.)

We got a record number of responses last week when we asked readers to share their loudspeaker preferences. Now tell us what <I>drives</I> those speakers.