LATEST ADDITIONS

The radio industry's frenzy of mergers and acquisitions has slowed down but hasn't stopped. San Antonio-based <A HREF="http://www.clearchannel.com/">Clear Channel Communications Inc.</A>, one of the largest radio broadcasters in the US, has agreed to acquire <A HREF="http://www.amfm.com/">AMFM Inc.</A>, another major player. The merger will give Clear Channel more than 850 stations nationwide. The deal hinges on Clear Channel unloading 72 of its stations in 27 markets to comply with <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> rules limiting the number of stations that can be owned by a single operator.

Three-dimensional modeling, 4-pi anechoic chambers, and laser inteferometry were but a few of the industrial marvels revealed in early March to a group of <I>Stereophile</I> and <I>Stereophile Guide to Home Theater</I> scribes. The group convened Tuesday, March 7, at Revel headquarters in the massive <A HREF="http://www.harman.com/">Harman International</A> complex in Northridge, California, for an inside view of the company's research, development, and manufacturing operations, organized and led by <A HREF="http://www.madrigal.com/">Madrigal</A&gt; president Mark Glazier. Madrigal is Harman's Middletown, Connecticut-based high-end operation, with the Proceed, Mark Levinson, and Revel lines under its jurisdiction.

Does high-end audio have a future? High-end audio most definitely does have a future. So do the Latin mass, chess, leather-bound books, and wooden boats. But the future will not be like the past, and I think we must face the fact that high-end audio's future, both for hardware and software, will be as a minority enthusiasm. We should plan and act accordingly.

Because they now realize that downloading music from the Internet is here to stay, it would seem the major record companies would love to see a world in which Web consumers no longer own a copy of a song or album, but simply pay each time they listen to it.

It happens to most of us. You're tooling down the road, listening to the radio, and you hear some music that captures your interest. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to easily find out who the artist is and what label they record for without waiting for the announcer, so you can head to your favorite music outlet and buy the disc? But how about pushing a button and ordering the item right there on the spot&mdash;from the driver's seat?

One of the music industry's "big five" will soon begin offering its wares as digital downloads. Seagram, Ltd. chief executive Edgar Bronfman, speaking on Friday, March 3 at the Jupiter Consumer Online forum in New York, said his <A HREF="http://www.umusic.com/">Universal Music Group</A> will start selling music online this spring.

Wes Phillips writes: "If, as some would have it, <I>Audiophilia nervosa</I> is like the dark night of reason, then certain audio epiphanies must necessarily stand out from a distance, like a grove of trees 20 miles away thrown into stark relief by prairie lightning." In his review of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/207/">B&W Nautilus 801 loudspeaker</A>, WP recounts that "the B&W Nautilus 801 has the stuff to keep me in fireplace fantasies throughout my dotage, and probably well into my (hyper)active middle age to boot."