LATEST ADDITIONS

Toronto-based Lenbrook Group announced earlier this month that it had acquired NAD Electronics from AudioNord International, a Scandinavian organization that has owned the brand for most of this decade. The deal is expected to close next week, on May 3. Lenbrook will take over NAD's worldwide marketing and distributorship, but AudioNord will continue to market the brand in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Scandinavia. Other joint marketing ventures will follow, according to Lenbrook's public relations agent.

We posted an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10415/">update</A&gt; on Peter Belt and his activities earlier in the month, but the saga began many moons ago. If you're curious about where it all began, or just need to know more, then J. Gordon Holt's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/110/">L'Affaire Belt</A>" is for you. Stranger than fiction? Guaranteed.

The Grateful Dead were the most enduring and most worshipped of all the rock groups who originated in the San Francisco scene of the 1960s. The Dead spawned Deadheads, a global family of loyal followers, who lived for the communal high of Dead concerts, where recording by fans was encouraged by the band and its management. Deadheads continue to share recordings of those concerts through a vast network, including several websites. Until recently, at least two of the sites had been providing MP3 transmissions at no charge.

An audio system is not a system unless you hook it all together. How do you do it?

In an aggressive move into the used audio equipment market, New York retailer <A HREF="http://www.harveyonline.com">Harvey Electronics</A> announced last week that the company will begin to sell used audio products and special purchases of new merchandise on <A HREF="http://www.ebay.com">eBay</A&gt;, an online auction site, beginning June 1, 1999. The company also recently announced that it will sell merchandise through other website partnerships.

Step all the way back to issue number one of <I>Stereophile</I>, in which Lucius Wordburger proffers some sage advice on <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//historical/108/">How to Write an Ad</A>. Learn about The Endorsement (hint: don't use Fidel Castro), The Calculated Omission, and The Junk Product.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.real.com">RealNetworks</A&gt; announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held <A HREF="http://www.xing-tech.com">Xing Technology</A>, a developer and provider of MP3 software. Xing has been developing standards-based digital audio and video encoding and decoding technology since 1990, but eventually ran into trouble competing with other Internet-audio startups such as RealNetworks and Liquid Audio.