LATEST ADDITIONS

Several weeks back, the music industry's fear of MP3 audio technology came to a head with the release of Diamond Multimedia's Rio playback device. (See <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10324/">previous</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10389/">related</A&gt; stories.) The <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> then announced a new plan, called the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI; see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10338/">previous article</A>), in an effort to bring the music and audio-technology industries together to solve the problem of digital music piracy.

The final piece of the TGI/Mordaunt-Short/Epos jigsaw puzzle (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10343/">previous story</A>) seems to have fallen into place, with the news that Mike Creek (of the UK's Creek Audio) is purchasing the Epos loudspeaker brand, effective March 1.

I've heard it all a thousand times before:

The standalone digital/analog converter emerged as a product category in 1987 with the appearance of the Arcam Black Box and the Marantz CDA-94, closely followed by the PS Audio Link. The idea was that putting the sensitive D/A-conversion and analog stages in a separate enclosure with its own power supply would maximize the sound quality when compared with packing these circuits in the same box as the transport. However, it turned out that the routing of the digital data between transport and processor in the form of an S/PDIF- or AES/EBU-encoded bitstream could introduce word-clock jitterwhich undid much of the sonic advantages. (See "Bits is Bits" by Malcolm Hawksford and Chris Dunn, <I>Stereophile</I>, March 1996.)

Bill Gates would have you believe we live in a plug'n'play world. Apple has proselytized same since day one. But I'm here to tell you it just isn't so for high-end audio. The orientation of a component's AC plug—even the quality of the wall receptacle itself—affects the sound! Oh no, Mr. Bill, not something else to futz with! Will it never end?

You think we've got format problems these days? Take a peek back to 1963, when J. Gordon Holt ripped apart the then-new record technology from RCA in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/95/">"Down with Dynagroove"</A>. Next, Wes Phillips writes an ode to his own Mr. Holland in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/94/">"A Passion for Music"</A>.

The official <A HREF="http://www.grammy.com/">website</A&gt; of the 41st Annual Grammy Awards was launched earlier this month with the help of a media team from the Atlanta division of <A HREF="http://www.ibm.com/">International Business Machines</A>. The Java-based site provides background information on the artists and events of the music-awards extravaganza, taking place Wednesday evening, February 24, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.