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The European Commission isn't especially fond of joint ventures by international media conglomerates. Last year, the EC successfully squashed a proposed merger of EMI and Warner Music Group on the grounds that WMG's parent company, AOL Time Warner (then simply Time Warner), combined with the UK's biggest name in music, would create "a virtual monopoly" of the European music market. A few months later, merger discussions between EMI and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) similarly went nowhere. EC investigators also looked into price-fixing in the European CD market early this year.

More good news for budget-conscious audiophiles who are waiting for that all-in-one universal high-resolution audio player: Yet another chip manufacturer is announcing a decoder IC that will allow new DVD machines to untangle just about any audio file format. Last week, LuxSonor Semiconductors joined the growing list (see previous) of chip manufacturers that are including both DVD-Audio and SACD in one package.

First, the sobering reality: Among the world's billions of music lovers, probably a million or fewer are true audiophiles, for whom sound quality is a primary concern. The uncritical majority will embrace any audio technology that offers economy and convenience. Case in point: the popularity of the MP3 digital format, widely derided by audiophiles for its compressed dynamics and lack of detail, but adopted readily by the general public because of its ease of use.