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Over-the-air classical music broadcasting is becoming increasingly rare, but classical has got a huge listenership on the Internet, according to a survey by rating service Arbitron">http://www.arbitron.com">Arbitron, Inc., which early this month announced that three classical music stations were among the five most listened to on the Internet.

For the tenth consecutive year, Stereophile writers and editors ferret out those components that have proved capable of giving musical pleasure beyond the formal review period and have wrapped them all up as The">http://www.stereophile.com//features/464/">The 2001 Products of the Year. The envelope please.

Audiophiles tend to be a fussy lot. But there are always a few sure-fire items that will put a smile on their faces without breaking the bank. We've got dozens of great ideas, guaranteed to suit every taste, available online (links are below) from our secure Web pages.

Every Consumer">http://www.cesweb.org">Consumer Electronics Show features unusual prototypes from engineers throughout the world. Some are laboratory curiosities that never develop into viable products, but others have great potential.

For any audio company to be successful, it needs to cover what my business school teachers used to call the "Four Ps": Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. In other words, success will follow if a company can slice up its resources to properly promote the right product at the right price and make it available in the right places.

Dolby">http://www.dolby.com">Dolby Laboratories was demonstrating its new Advanced">http://www.aac-audio.com">Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) consumer encoder, which the company says complements its professional AAC encoder, at this year's New York AES Convention. Dolby says it will license the encoder to enable "high-quality AAC encoding" for CD-rippers, hard disk–based jukebox products, Internet-based music distribution systems, portable players, and other digital audio products aimed at the consumer market.

Sam Tellig loves 'em and consistently sings their high-quality/low-buck praises as a cheapskate favorite ($6.99 per CD!). And now, classical music label Naxos">http://www.naxos.com">Naxos of America is blazing new paths with its announcement last week that it and Liquid">http://www.liquidaudio.com">Liquid Audio have inked an agreement to digitally distribute downloads of selected Naxos recordings to leading retail and music web sites in the Liquid Music Network.

While audiophiles obsess about extracting another iota of resolution from our already high-rez systems and recordings, the rest of the world is going crazy for portable music.

In his review of the Soliloquy">http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/459/">Soliloquy 5.3 loudspeaker, Kalman Rubinson says that when he heard a pair, his first thoughts were, "Gotta get my hands on these!" After careful listening, did the speaker live up to Rubinson's first impressions? KR tells the whole story.

With worldwide demand for semiconductors lower than it has been in many years, Philips">http://www.philips.com">Philips Electronics NV has announced an organizational streamlining that may cost 4000 workers their jobs.