LATEST ADDITIONS

It's a reviewer's privilege to be able to switch back and forth between tube and solid-state gear (or combinations thereof) as the mood or the assignment moves him. Still, I find I'm inevitably drawn back to the Epicurean delights of triode tube gear. When done right, there's an alluring musicality to it, like the breath of life. However, in any tube <I>vs</I> solid-state contest, the relative tradeoffs between tone and resolution&mdash;sweetness and articulation, euphony and frequency extension&mdash;must be taken into consideration.

The results from last week's Vote! indicate a clear distaste for watermarking as a means of preventing the pirating of recordings. But what do you suggest be done in its place?

Kalman Rubinson gives a long listen to the 1998 <I>Stereophile</I> Editor's Choice winner, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/278/">Z-Systems rdp-1 digital preamplifier</A>. Like many audiophiles, Kal eschewed tone controls in favor of the purist approach&mdash;until he met the rdp-1. As he puts it: "Now, the time has come for DSP to give the audiophile some powerful tools to tailor frequency response and to correct faults in the recording."

The most common complaint about record companies: CD prices are too high. In fact, many blame Napster's runaway success on the insistence of "greedy labels" on pricing discs at $15 or higher. Apparently BMG Direct, a division of <A HREF="http://www.bmg.com/">BMG Entertainment</A>, has put two and two together and found it equals $9.99.

Mastering engineer Denny Purcell let out a long sigh. "Does anyone in this room really believe that any of this is going to do any good?" he asked. Of the eight or nine people&mdash;each with decades of experience in the music and/or audio industries&mdash;hanging out at Georgetown Masters Studios in Nashville for SDMI's Phase II listening tests, no one said "Yes." The consensus: The watermarking issue will probably be dead and forgotten within a year.

<B>EMMYLOU HARRIS: <I>Red Dirt Girl</I></B><BR> Nonesuch 79616-2 (CD). 2000. Malcolm Burn, prod., eng. AAD? TT: 55:58<BR> Performance <B>****?</B><BR> Sonics <B>****</B>

Using a digital code, or "watermark," has been proposed for SACD and DVD-Audio recordings to help control what consumers can and cannot do with the new discs. The downside is that some engineers feel that the watermark, though subtle, might be audible at times. Does this bother you?