LATEST ADDITIONS

"Commoditization leads to the death of a specialty industry!" Hearing this at what I'd anticipated would be a sleep-inducing seminar on marketing, I pricked up my ears. The speaker was management guru Tom Peters, author of the best-selling <I>In Search of Excellence</I> and <I>The Pursuit of WOW!</I>. "Once your product is commoditized, all that is left to compete on is price," Peters continued, as I frantically scrawled down his comments, "and a small company will <I>always</I> lose to the big guns on price!"

The upbeat is the most magic moment in classical music making. Before the conductor brings down his baton for the downbeat, anything and everything are possible in the musical journey that is about to begin. And the upbeat to Mozart's sublime Clarinet Concerto that conductor Robert Bailey was about to give in London's Henry Wood Hall last November gave me an extra frisson&mdash;as producer of the recording sessions, I would have to pronounce instant judgment on everything I was about to hear.

Pay $350,000 for an amplifier?!?!! Michael Fremer takes a deep breath and plugs in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/704wavac">Wavac SH-833 monoblock power amplifier</A> in order to hear for himself what he might get if he traded in his house. "When tmh's Jim Ricketts asked me if I wanted to review this eight-box assemblage," says MF, "the first thing I did was laugh at the ludicrousness of the situation. Then I said, 'Why the hell not?'"

For some time now, the truly hip Web-enabled person of stature has shared his or her thoughts with the world via a blog (from we<B>b</B> <B>log</B>); these days actors, musicians, and, yes, even politicians are getting into the act.

The digital audio genie was released two decades ago, before the music industry imagined any need to restrict how music files on a compact disc might be used. The last few years, however, have seen myriad attempts to redesign the digital audio bottle, and then shove the genie back in&mdash;with limited success.

<B>CHRIS STAMEY: <I>Travels In the South</I></B><BR>
Yep Roc 2033 (CD). 2004. Chris Stamey, Jefferson Holt, prods.; Don Dixon, Greg Elkins, prods., engs.; Tim Harper, Brian Paulson, John Plymale, Wes Lachot, Logan Matheny, Dan Korneff, engs. AAD. TT: 52:30<BR>
Performance <B>****</B><BR>
Sonics <B>***</B>

I recently came across a 1998 report, "<A HREF="http://www.conference-board.org/publications/describe.cfm?id=398">Expla… the Computer Productivity Paradox</A>," by Kevin Stiroh and Robert H. McGuckin III, that discussed the apparent fact that the widespread use of computers has not resulted in any significant increase in worker productivity. This is indeed a paradox, as my experience in the magazine business has left me with the opposite impression. We all do more, with less, than at any earlier time.