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Day Four at <A HREF="http:www.aes.org/">AES</A&gt;. The crowds were somewhat thinner, but the convention floor was still buzzing, still incredibly busy right up to 4pm, the official break-down time. I spent a couple of hours strolling the floor with <A HREF="http://vacuumtube.com/">Vacuum Tube Valley</A>'s Eric Barbour, who works another side of the thermionic street as an application engineer for Svetlana, the Portola Valley, CA-based importer of Russian-made tubes. Svetlana will soon be making the ubiquitous 12AX7 and other popular tubes in its St. Petersburg factory, he told me. Instability in Russia has hindered production recently, but Eric said all such problems have been solved. He also mentioned that <I>VTV</I> has moved to new offices and should soon be published quarterly. I stood by as he made a sales call at the <A HREF="http://www.mil-media.com/">Millennia Media</A> booth.

Cats vs. dogs, Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner, Spy vs. Spy, Analog vs. Digital. It seems that some battles will never end, and so it is with flux vs. bits in the professional recording industry. The Audio Engineering Society (AES) conventions dazzle showgoers with the latest audio recording and processing gear, mostly digital, and this year's show is no exception. The big buzz heard 'round the hall were higher sampling and quantization rates for future music formats such as DVD-Audio. But off-site, at the nearby ANA hotel (great choice of venue---just add LOG) in downtown San Francisco, key industry heavyweights were holding a meeting to discuss the future of analog recording technologies.

So where did we leave off? I think you were wandering around the listening room clapping your hands. You were, I hope, listening to the slap echo and noting how it changed as you meandered about. That's probably just when someone near and dear bumped suddenly into the room and gave you that peculiar look we audiophiles know so well. Try to explain what you're doing.

Last week we asked about the cost of your system, but reader Matt H. suggested we ask about the cost of the software to feed it.

HDCD and <A HREF="http://www.hdcd.com">Pacific Microsonics</A> appear to be on a roll these days. The HDCD process, developed to coerce 20-bit performance out of the 16-bit CD format, is gaining several new licensees and is also appearing in more devices, as evidenced by several recent announcements. The company is also looking ahead to future DVD formats with an agreement intended to couple HDCD benefits with higher sampling rates.

James Bongiorno needs your help. The legendary electronics designer, whose pioneering work with fully complementary solid-state amplifiers has become part of engineering's standard lexicon, is battling liver cancer.

Saturday, September 26, thousands of enthusiastic audio-savvy attendees began swarming through the massive cavern of the Moscone Center's North Hall in San Francisco. They will continue to swarm until late Tuesday, September 29, the last day of the 105th <A HREF="http://www.aes.org/">Audio Engineering Society</A> Convention. The convention has attracted hundreds of companies whose products are extravagantly displayed in the huge space beneath the Yerba Buena Gardens. Demonstrations of new products and technologies also take place in smaller rooms off the main floor. Research papers are being presented in meetings throughout the four-day event.