"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

It's been a long wait, but we're finally starting to see high-bandwidth IEEE 1394 digital audio connections on the back of DVD-A/SACD players (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11369/">related story</A>), as first <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10049/">hinted at by Yamaha</A> five years ago. A key ingredient for getting the beleaguered 1394 (or FireWire or iLink) format moving was the inclusion of copy-protection protocols that restrict unfettered consumer use of the digital audio content.

SACD partisans Sony and Philips continue to release new disc players that also decode DVD-Video, but not DVD-Audio. And arch-DVD-A supporter Meridian, as well as companies such as McIntosh, are releasing DVD-A and DVD-V players that don't do SACD. But there are exceptions, notably <A HREF="http://www.pioneerelectronics.com">Pioneer</A&gt;, who debuted the first widely available "universal" player, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/515/">DV-AX10 SACD/DVD-A/CD player</A>, last year.

If you've ever hunted for a song title or a performer's name on the Internet, you've probably used <A HREF="http://www.cddb.com">CDDB</A&gt;, the Compact Disc Database.