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The Paradigm">http://www.paradigm.ca">Paradigm Group announced today that they have entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of Sonic">http://www.sonicfrontiers.com">Sonic Frontiers Inc., of Oakville, Ontario, as the first step in a comprehensive restructuring plan that will lead to an expansion of Sonic Frontiers.

Another crucial piece of the DVD-Audio puzzle fell into place recently when the WG-4 (Working Group 4) DVD-Audio Working Group approved the adoption of MLP (see previous articles 1http://www.stereophile.com/news/10188/">1;, 2http://www.stereophile.com/news/10200/">2;) as the lossless algorithm for DVD-Audio at its August 5th meeting in Tokyo. WG-4 will require official approval from its supervising organizations, the Technical Coordination Group and Steering Committee---considered a formality at this point.

This last year has seen several companies proclaim the launch of the "world's first digital loudspeaker." The term brings to mind some exotic new approach that is neither cone nor ribbon nor electrostat---something as different from all of those as, say, a CD is from a vinyl record or cassette tape.

Protection for the creative community or job security for lawyers? These are but two of many interpretations of the Digital">http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:h.r.02281:">Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which won approval by voice vote in the US House of Representatives August 4. The bill will implement into US law the treaties signed by 157 signatories at the World Intellectual Properties Organization conference in Geneva in December 1996. A separate version was passed by the Senate in May. Differences between the two must be ironed out before a final version can be signed into law by President Clinton.

News recently coming out of Cambridge, England promises yet another new revolutionary loudspeaker technology following in the footsteps of NXT's">http://www.nxt.co.uk/">NXT's flat-panel speakers and ATC's">http://www.atcsd.com/">ATC's HyperSonic">http://www.atcsd.com/HTML/whitepaper.html">HyperSonic Sound and Stratified">http://www.atcsd.com/RELEASES/pr020998.html">Stratified Field Technology. Engineering consultant Tony Hooley heads up a team of researchers who have created what they hope will be a breakthrough in small, lightweight, highly accurate-sounding arrays of digitally driven pressure transducers.

New companies are springing up all around the web to provide songs for custom CD compilations. (See previous articles 1http://www.stereophile.com/news/10185/">1;, 2http://www.stereophile.com/news/10157/">2;.) You go to the site, choose up to 70 minutes of music from their catalog, and the finished disc is mailed back to you in a couple of days for between 10 and 20 bucks. The challenge for these companies is to have an attractive catalog of artists and songs to choose from.

Frequently a hot topic in the hallowed pages of Stereophile, DVD-Audio will be among the agenda items at the third US DVD Conference on October 1-2, 1998, in San Francisco. Presented by the DVD">http://www.dvdforum.org/">DVD Forum, the international association working to develop universal DVD formats, the event will take place at the Grand Peninsula Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency SF Airport.