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For months now, the music industry has concentrated all its legal firepower on <A HREF="http://www.napster.com/">Napster</A&gt;, the Silicon Valley&ndash;based software company that lets users share music; and against San Diego's <A HREF="http://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com</A&gt;, which lets users upload their music to a central server and then access it from any Internet-connected computer. As of the end of June, it appears that MP3.com will likely be co-opted by the industry's Big Five until it is no longer a threat&mdash;two of the major labels have already settled with the startup&mdash;but Napster will fight on.

It was 2am on January 8, 2000, and I was sitting at the bar of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. I'd just arrived for the Consumer Electronics Show and was recovering from a stressful day of travel. The airlines have a new computerized ticketing technology called the "electronic ticket": you get a reservation and a confirmation number, but no physical plane ticket, itinerary, or the feelings of security that accompany those pieces of paper.

Although Kentucky loudspeaker manufacturer Thiel has produced some standmounted models for home-theater use, all of their serious music speakers have been floorstanders. Enter the PCS: even though styled to match every Thiel speaker since the groundbreaking CS5 of 1989, the 19"-high PCS sits on a stand, not the floor.

The Emerson String Quartet defies conventional wisdom. They like to take risks, and they use the adrenaline that creates to hone their music-making to a fine edge.

We're on a roll here, folks. Last week you told us about the worst singles of all time. Now let's up the ante: what about the worst albums?

CD changers holding hundreds of discs at a time have found their place in a sizable percentage of consumer homes, and have proven especially useful in the custom installation market. Fans of these mega-changers love to drop their discs into one place, never having to crack open a CD case again. Drawbacks, however, include not being able to easily move the disc from home to car or portable, and the mechanical whirring and clanking the machines make as they slowly plow through the user's playlist.

According to numbers just released by the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA), April audio factory-to-dealer sales shot up by 13% to $611 million, representing a year-to-date increase of 10%. The CEA says that audio revenues in all categories except aftermarket autosound experienced double-digit growth in both monthly and year-to-date sales. Aftermarket autosound remained steady, keeping pace with its record-breaking sales in 1999.