LATEST ADDITIONS

Digital perfectionists <B>Meridian</B> obviously pulled out all the stops on their new flagship speaker product, the DSP8000. Checking in at $45,000/pair, the eight-driver Digital Active design is expected to hit the market sometime in March. Meridian claims the three-way powered speaker has a 24/96 digital input on the back and processes the digital signal internally with two 100MHz DSP engines operating with 24/192 resolution. Also on display were the new DSP33s, also Digital Active but more modestly priced at $4500/pair.

The music business is a $13-billion-a-year industry, but the high-end audio industry reaches only a tiny fraction of the music lovers that number represents. "Everybody loves music, so why don't they love specialty audio?" was the question addressed to a group of industry experts at one of a series of <A HREF="http://www.audiocafe.com/">AudioCafe.com</A>-sponsored panel discussions on Friday, January 7, at the Alexis Park, during the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

High-end audio in trouble? That's been the consensus the last few years, but the sheer number of new products at this year's Consumer Electronics Show hints at a steady trend in the opposite direction. New developments in power conditioning abound, and several brave companies are even testing the SACD/DSD and DVD-Audio waters.

Reader Paul W. Simoni wonders how content audiophiles are with the high-end audio business.

The month of December was particularly hard on the music world, which lost three of its greatest talents within a few days of each other: Curtis Mayfield, Grover Washington, Jr., and Charles Earland. All were in their late 50s.

Owners of Threshold electronics will soon have an expert service organization available for their amplifiers and preamps. Threshold Corporation national sales manager <A HREF="mailto:CE@thresholdservice.com">Chris English</A> reports that he has assumed the presidency of a new company to be devoted solely to servicing Threshold equipment. Based in Texas, Threshold Service Company will employ factory-trained technicians and engineers, and will offer warranties on all their work.

Now that the big odometer has finally turned over, John Atkinson takes a moment to look back at the last 50 years of music reproduction&mdash;the era of high-end audio. Writing in "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/185/">Happy New Audio Millennium</A>," JA offers a little perspective on where audiophiles have traveled this last half century, and where we haven't.