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Sure we all have a great listening setup, or at least are working on it. But reader Charles Domingue wants to know if your main music listening room is also your home-theater room?

On May 10, Tweeter Home Entertainment Group announced that it has insufficient working capital to cover its long- and short-term costs and may have to consider filing for Chapter 11. The immediate cause of the shortfall is the cost of closing 49 stores and two distribution centers. <I>This Week in Consumer Electronics</I> reported specifically that lump sum payments to lease-holding landlords was a contributory factor.

Lexington, KY&ndash;based Thiel Audio has announced that it will partner with Charlottesville, VA&ndash;based Crutchfield to offer its speakers online and in Crutchfield brick-and-mortar outlets. Thiel has been famously reluctant to go online, having established itself through its canny vetting of potential retail partners. It kept its distribution clean.

My interest in wireless network music players began during David Hyman's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11662">keynote speech</A> at Home Entertainment 2003. Then CEO of Gracenote, Inc. (footnote 1), Hyman stunned me with his opinion that CDs and DVDs were already obsolete. Rather than pursue discs with greater storage capacity, Hyman urged industry designers to design music-server units with large hard drives to allow instantaneous access to any digital music track. With all of your music stored on a central hard drive, you could, within seconds, locate a specific track among thousands just by knowing the name of the artist, song, group, composer, year of recording, or even recording venue. Music mixes could be instantly grouped into playlists by the owner.

Audiophiles are frequently accused of being more in love with gizmos than with music. There may be a kernel of truth in that, but a scant few companies actually exploit the giz factor to give you <I>mo'</I>&mdash;a <I>lot</I> mo'.

<B>Michael Brecker <I>Pilgrimage</I></B><BR>
Michael Brecker, tenor sax, EWI; Pat Metheny, guitars; Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau, keyboards; John Patitucci, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums<BR>
Heads Up International HUCD 3095 (CD). 2007. Michael Brecker, Gil Goldstein, Steve Rodby, Pat Metheny, prods.; Darryl Pitt, exec. prod.; Joe Ferla, eng. DDD. TT: 77:57<BR>
Performance ****&#189;<BR>
Sonics ****&#189;

That's pronounced sheeYEUfn (like <I>that</I> helps) and it's from Norse mythology&mdash;Sj&#246;fn inspired passion through her singing. Guru Pro Audio head of R & D, Ingvar &#214;hman is clearly passionate about his loudspeaker, which he likened to "VWs that perform like Ferraris." The Gurus($1800/pair) are small, designed to be placed near the room boundaries, and were pretty impressive.