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The music goes round and round: An investment group led by former Universal Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is in the lead to acquire Warner Music Group (WMG) and Warner/Chappell Music Publishing from corporate parent Time Warner, according to reports issued the third week of November. Bronfman's group—a consortium of banks and venture capital firms—has offered $2.8 billion for Time Warner's musical properties, possibly forcing prior suitor EMI Group PLC to drop out of the bidding. On Thursday, November 20, EMI chairman Eric Nicoll told reporters that Time Warner had informed his company of "a possible proposal from another party as an alternative to our own firm offer."

One of the keys to SACD's potential acceptance within the mass market is the hybrid disc format, ensuring that all of those Stones, Dylan, or Pink Floyd discs can be purchased by consumers with regular CD players. Although the DVD-Audio camp has played">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11515/index.html">played with the idea of hybrid discs for its format, nothing has made it past the testing stages yet.

Back in the 1990s, I lusted mightily for the large ESP speakers with their tall, slim shapes and their angled driver panels. A large-room demo of the Concert Grands with Sonic Frontiers electronics still reverberates in my memory. Unfortunately, just as I evolved to the point where I could consider buying a pair of Concert Grands, the company folded its tents. Recently, I heard a rumor that ESP might be returning, and an email exchange with founder and designer Sean McCaughan has confirmed the good news.