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Chip Stern finds the AH">http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/1103tjoeb">AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player to be a bargain in its modest price range. CS writes: "Consider the notion of an exceptionally musical, single-chassis CD player with a tubed output stage that evinces the kind of soundstaging depth, liquidity, timbral accuracy, high-frequency detail, and top-to-bottom smoothness for which, barely five years ago, consumers might have eagerly coughed up $3000 and more."

Grabbing a few big gulps can sometimes fill you up quickly, but it can also lead to a little indigestion. This proved to be the case for D&M">http://www.dm-holdings.com">D&M Holdings, which filed results for the first half of its fiscal year, ending September 30, 2003, and its financial forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2004 with the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

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.

One of the visual highlights of the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show and HE 2003 in San Francisco was the Penaudiohttp://www.penaudio.fi">Penaudio; speakers, sporting a unique sliced-wood veneer wrapped around diminutive two-way designs. While the speakers were easy on the eyes, it wasn't so easy to find a pair to audition in the US.

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.

John Gourlay, Stereophile's publisher since 1998, left the company at the beginning of November. John had been a valued collaborator and the moving force behind the launch of the 2004 Stereophile Buyer's Guide (see related story). We all wish him well in his future career.

Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group could soon be one.