The US Copyright Office is being pulled in opposite directions over a recent decree establishing royalty rates for music played by webcasters. On one side are radio stations and Internet-only music sites, which claim that the rates are too high. On the other side is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which claims that the rates are too low. Both sides have filed separate appeals in US federal court.

Issues surrounding the music industry are heating up, and most stories revolve around the record labels, musicians, congress, consumers, and music pirates. Often lost in the noise is the importance of another major player in the business: the technical folks who make recorded music happen.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a company more protective of its reputation than Krell," says Wes Phillips, as he heads off to evaluate the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/638/">Krell KAV-300<I>cd</I> CD player</A>. WP ponders whether that reputation is still intact as the company tries to save its customers some money.

"My god. This was better than any hi-fi I had ever experienced&mdash;I actually had Sergei Rachmaninoff <I>in the room</I>, playing Mendelssohn just for <I>me</I>. I am not ashamed to say that I wept." I wrote those words in the January 2001 <I>Stereophile</I>, about hearing a piano-roll transcription of Rachmaninoff performing Mendelssohn's <I>Spinning Song</I> (Op.67 No.34) on a B&#246;sendorfer Imperial 290SE reproducing piano. I was in the middle of recording <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//musicrecordings/298/">Robert Silverman's cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas</A> at the Maestro Foundation in Santa Monica, where there just happened to be a floppy disk with Wayne Stahnke's transcription of the Rachmaninoff for the B&#246;sendorfer mechanism, which Stahnke invented.

Choice is generally considered a plus, but as many of our readers note, when it comes to audio, a format war is the last thing consumers need. While the DVD-A/SACD conflict takes the center audio stage, other technology battles are being fought off in the wings, including the satellite radio format tussle 'twixt XM and Sirius.

Chip Stern heads this week's list with an evaluation of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/633/">NAD C370 integrated amplifier</A> from the January 2002 issue. With the units priced to sell, at $699, CS wants to know if the C370 can satisfy audiophiles as well as budget-conscious shoppers.

Late July was a volatile period for the music industry. On the 29th, Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff announced his resignation. The "young lion" who ushered the German media conglomerate into the Internet age&mdash;and into an ill-advised $100 million investment in now-forgotten Napster&mdash;apparently had a very different vision for the future of the company than does the Mohn family, which controls 75% of Bertelsmann stock. "Shareholders had mid- and long-term development prospects that were different from mine," Middelhoff told reporters. "In this context, I had no choice but to resign." Bertelsmann is parent company of BMG, the music giant.

In apparent response to proposed federal legislation that would permit copyright holders to launch technological strikes against privately-owned computers, hackers launched an attack of their own over the weekend of July 27&ndash;28, rendering the website of the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) unusable.

It's been, as Bette Davis might say, a bumpy ride, but Genesis says it is back as a designer and manufacturer of high-end loudspeakers. Formed in 1991, Genesis was originally partnered by Canadian loudspeaker conglomerate Audio Products International (Mirage, Energy, Sound Dynamics), until famed designers Arnie Nudell and Paul McGowan bought API out in 1994.