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Music industry executives widely believe that "ring tones"&mdash;snippets of favorite tunes&mdash;and music downloadable to cell phones will be the next big trend, perhaps one that could help restore some luster to the industry's tarnished bottom line. "Music-related products for PCs and mobile phones are on pace to deliver as much as $500 million in combined revenue in the US for 2004, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures and analysts' projections," reported Brian Garrity in a mid-December issue of <I>Billboard</I>.

Once upon a time, holiday shoppers fought over Cabbage Patch Dolls and Beanie Babies.

In the January 2005 issue of <I>Stereophile</I>, reader "KCA" suggests rather impolitely that the magazine recommends too many components. What do you think?

New experiences are some of the most pleasurable parts of being an audio reviewer. Despite being involved with the High End for longer than I care to think about, I had never had the experience of owning, living with, or reviewing a pair of electrostatic speakers, be they full-range or hybrid. I'd heard various Quads plenty of times at shows and in the homes of audio buddies, but in my own listening cave? Never.

I am biased in favor of Paradigm loudspeakers. I've used them for 10 years; they offer good sound and good value, properties they share with a number of other Canadian makes who have taken advantage of Canada's National Research Council facilities in Ottawa. In fact, the first components I bought specifically for what is now my multichannel system were Paradigm Esprit/BP speakers, which had impressed me at a <I>Stereophile</I> show. When I took the step into multichannel and found that there wasn't a matching center-channel speaker for the Esprits, I replaced them with Paradigm's Reference Studio/60 v.2s. But while the smaller <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/628">Reference Studio/20</A>, and the larger <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/252">Studio/100</A&gt; have both been reviewed in <I>Stereophile</I>, the Studio/60 had not. The release of the v.2's successor, the Reference Studio/60 v.3 ($1699/pair), was an opportunity to fill that gap.

Long-simmering disputes about peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P, will finally come to a boil sometime next year. On Friday, December 10, the US Supreme Court agreed to examine whether online services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks, Inc. are liable for copyright infringement. Both services enable users to share music and other forms of copyrighted material, and both derive revenue from advertising.

A local body shop owner explained to me recently how the center brake light that began showing up on the rear deck of cars a few years ago killed business for him and his pals. Seems that all of a sudden, folks weren't rear-ending each other as often.