LATEST ADDITIONS

Last August, we <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10515/">reported</A&gt; that brick-and-mortar retailer Tweeter Home Entertainment Group had aligned itself with online retailer Cyberian Outpost to leverage each company's respective strengths, both on- and offline. The trend continues as, last week, brick-and-mortar retailer <A HREF="http://www.harveyonline.com">Harvey Electronics</A> announced that it has reached an "agreement in principle" with <A HREF="http://www.coolaudio.com">CoolAudio.com</A&gt; (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10479/">previous story</A>) to merge the two companies through an exchange of common stock.

The quest for new speaker technologies has resulted in some novel approaches to the reproduction of sound, as witnessed by products announced in the last few years by <A HREF="http://www.nxt.co.uk/">NXT</A&gt; and 1 . . . Ltd. (See <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10234/">previous story</A>.) Some of <I>Stereophile</I>'s readers may also recall that, back in May 1996, <A HREF="http://www.atcsd.com">American Technology Corp.</A> shook things up in the audio world by announcing what the company described as its "breakthough" new technology, the much-debated HyperSonic Sound (HSS). This was followed up in February 1997, when ATC announced the introduction of its Stratified Field Technology SFT, which company literature touted as "a significant improvement over conventional loudspeakers."

Since 1992, Stereophile has named a select few audio components its "Products of the Year." In doing so, we recognize those components that have proved capable of giving musical pleasure beyond the formal review period.

Unlike the imposing mbl and Burmester DACs that I review elsewhere in this issue, the Mark Levinson No.360 is New England conservative in appearance. Its operation was simple to master despite the sophistication and flexibility on tap. Flanked by Fasolt and Fafner, the Levinson No.360 seemed as amiable as Freia.

It would seem that every generation remembers the good ol' days of music, before the kids turned it all into mush. Or is that just a fallacy proven wrong by every new release?

Old joke: "We lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume." A similar concept seems to be at the heart of the free download phenomenon sweeping through the Internet music industry: give it away as a lo-rez MP3, and customers will come back to buy the CD.

In his third installment of "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//finetunes/173/">Fine Tunes</A>," Jonathan Scull encourages readers to stick their heads in a corner. "Notice how strongly the bass loads up there, how exaggerated and out of control it sounds," he writes. With the help of Jeff Joseph, Scull also reveals a trick for dealing with square rooms.