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 <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11238/">promise</A&gt; 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.

Small webcasters have won another reprieve from royalty payments.

"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 <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/692/">Mark Levinson No.37 CD transport & No.36S D/A converter</A> out for a couple of spins.

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

Although the <A HREF="http://www.tweeter.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group</A>'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.

To date, record label attempts at adding copy-control systems to CDs to restrict their use have been less than totally succesful. We've had Sony discs that <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11341/">get stuck in computers</A>, discs that <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11261/">don't reliably play</A> in all CD players, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11247/">trademark violations</A>, and CDs that generate <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11134/">lawsuits</A&gt; and consumer frustration from not being able to create a "fair-use" personal copy of a disc to throw in the car.

Legislation establishing royalties to be paid by small webcasters is stalled in the US Senate until after the November elections.

The release of our 2001 Recommended Components online last month was such a success, we now offer readers the opportunity to buy the 2002 "Recommended Components" from both the April and October issues as .pdf files.