There's an old Spanish proverb: "If six people call you an ass, start braying." A contemporary corollary might be that if enough audiophiles insist a product is the best ever, it behooves the "experts" to check it out. At least, that was John Atkinson's thinking when he suggested I audition the Oppo Digital DV-970HD universal disc player ($149).

There's an old Spanish proverb: "If six people call you an ass, start braying." A contemporary corollary might be that if enough audiophiles insist a product is the best ever, it behooves the "experts" to check it out. At least, that was John Atkinson's thinking when he suggested I audition the Oppo Digital DV-970HD universal disc player ($149).

There's an old Spanish proverb: "If six people call you an ass, start braying." A contemporary corollary might be that if enough audiophiles insist a product is the best ever, it behooves the "experts" to check it out. At least, that was John Atkinson's thinking when he suggested I audition the Oppo Digital DV-970HD universal disc player ($149).

For a word that first appeared in print only 35 years ago, <I>prequel</I> has a lot of impact&mdash;if only in a commercial sense. The television series <I>Smallville</I> has become a staple of American broadcasting. Film producers gambled millions on the chance that audiences would want to know what happened when Batman <I>began</I>. And while moviegoers have turned their backs on the apparently awful <I>Hannibal Rising</I>, the book of the same name is doing brisk business indeed.

For a word that first appeared in print only 35 years ago, <I>prequel</I> has a lot of impact&mdash;if only in a commercial sense. The television series <I>Smallville</I> has become a staple of American broadcasting. Film producers gambled millions on the chance that audiences would want to know what happened when Batman <I>began</I>. And while moviegoers have turned their backs on the apparently awful <I>Hannibal Rising</I>, the book of the same name is doing brisk business indeed.

For a word that first appeared in print only 35 years ago, <I>prequel</I> has a lot of impact&mdash;if only in a commercial sense. The television series <I>Smallville</I> has become a staple of American broadcasting. Film producers gambled millions on the chance that audiences would want to know what happened when Batman <I>began</I>. And while moviegoers have turned their backs on the apparently awful <I>Hannibal Rising</I>, the book of the same name is doing brisk business indeed.

For a word that first appeared in print only 35 years ago, prequel has a lot of impact—if only in a commercial sense. The television series Smallville has become a staple of American broadcasting. Film producers gambled millions on the chance that audiences would want to know what happened when Batman began. And while moviegoers have turned their backs on the apparently awful Hannibal Rising, the book of the same name is doing brisk business indeed.