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One of the great things about the DVD-Audio format is the sheer flexibility built into the standard: two-channel or multichannel (mixed for four, five, or six speakers), multiple resolutions, multiple encode/decode choices (MLP, Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM), and an assortment of special features, including video.

Tom Dowd, a recording engineer and producer who created some of the greatest pop, jazz, and rock recordings of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, and who ushered in the era of multi-track tape recording and stereo playback, died Sunday, October 27 of emphysema at an assisted living center in Aventura, Florida, near Miami. He was 77.

One would think the last thing the music industry needs right now is to further alienate its customers who are still buying discs. But that is just what the record labels are doing by secretly experimenting with technology that restricts how discs are used, says a new report.

The first half of the fiscal year has been generally kind to many Japanese electronics manufacturers, most of whom released financial reports at the end of October.

Brian Damkroger has a wonderful moment or two as he auditions the VAC">http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/697/">VAC Renaissance Signature Mk.II preamplifier. As BD explains, the right musical situation can trigger those long-lost memories . . . .

During the week of October 14, Thiel">http://www.thielaudio.com">Thiel Audio Products president Kathy Gornik completed an unprecedented triple play.

"We are now well past the era in which every review of digital playback equipment had to begin with an apology for the medium," writes Thomas J. Norton. As a case in point, TJN takes the Mark">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/692/">Mark Levinson No.37 CD transport & No.36S D/A converter out for a couple of spins.

Small webcasters have won another reprieve from royalty payments.

Recent news from Universal Music Group should bode well for the SACD format. It's not exactly a flood, but the world's largest music company finally made good on the promisehttp://www.stereophile.com/news/11238/">promise; it made at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and announced last week its first Super Audio CD (SACD) titles to be released in the United States.

Although the Tweeter">http://www.tweeter.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group's rate of expansion has slowed, it shows no sign of stopping. The Canton, MA electronics retailer will open six new stores during the month of November.