LATEST ADDITIONS

Audiophiles have more than just piles of equipment and music to wrestle with in their quest for audio ecstasy. The listening room often colors a system's performance as much as any component in the chain. Tom Norton decided it was time to examine the subject, writing, "although the perfect room does not exist, there are things that can be done to make the most of even an admittedly difficult situation." See his report in "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//reference/58/">Enough Room?</A>"

E<I>ditor's Note: This item is an excerpt from an e-mail received from Russia late last week. It's noteworthy that the US Congress has spent hundreds of days and more than $50 million investigating the President's adolescent shenanigans, while elsewhere in the world serious trouble is afoot. Leonid Korostyshevski is a computer consultant and audiophile in the university town of Saratov, on the Volga river 600 miles east of Moscow. His <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10131/">previous dispatch</A> appeared here in March.----BW</I>

With the reality of digital television now almost within our grasp, manufacturers of big-screen sets must feel like sky-divers in free fall. Until the 'chute opens with the snap of digital displays finally hitting the stores, the market for large, expensive, conventional rear-projection models might appear to be controlled by nothing but the force of gravity. In a highly unscientific survey, I asked a few dealers around the country whether big-screen television sales were down and whether consumers seemed to be waiting for the coming of the first digital sets. The answer to both questions was a uniform and unequivocal <I>yes</I>.

Last week's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/vote.shtml">Vote! question</A> about vibration control garnered one of the most interesting groups of comments from readers so far. Everything from bicycle tires to bubble wrap is being employed in audiophile homes around the world in an attempt to subdue the dreaded curse of the shakes.

Recently, the <I><A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</A></I> announced the "lease" of its AM radio station, 1560kHz on the dial, to Disney/ABC for the next 8 years. Why is this important?

Internet traffic doubles every 100 days, according to some statistics. This growth has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of online shopping---a phenomenon that has had a significant impact on retailers. Independent bookstores, for example, have been squeezed not only by the expansion of large-scale operations like <A HREF="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/">Barnes & Noble</A>, but also by the popularity of Internet discounters like <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/">Amazon.com</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.borders.com/">Borders.com</A&gt;. Online sales of recorded music by both record clubs and start-up resellers have put a dent in the bottom lines of many mass-market music stores---although not a huge one yet. The trend will certainly continue.

Convergence has come to the automotive market. <A HREF="http://www.autopc.com/">Clarion Corporation of America</A> announced December 4 that it has developed the the world's first product that integrates car audio, computing functions, navigation, and wireless communications through hands-free voice activation. The Clarion AutoPC is a DIN unit that fits in the dash of an automobile, and is powered by the Microsoft Windows CE operating system.