I walked through my local Best Buy recently and didn't see one stereo receiver. Boomboxes, table radios, surround-sound gear, and computer speakers were everywhere. But the hi-fi staple of the 1960s and '70s—the plain-vanilla two-channel receiver—was not to be seen. Even if one or two were lurking there, the fact remains that high-quality two-channel audio is now so disconnected from consumer electronics that it's hardly at the "high end" of anything at all. It's a world unto itself.

I walked through my local Best Buy recently and didn't see one stereo receiver. Boomboxes, table radios, surround-sound gear, and computer speakers were everywhere. But the hi-fi staple of the 1960s and '70s—the plain-vanilla two-channel receiver—was not to be seen. Even if one or two were lurking there, the fact remains that high-quality two-channel audio is now so disconnected from consumer electronics that it's hardly at the "high end" of anything at all. It's a world unto itself.

I walked through my local Best Buy recently and didn't see one stereo receiver. Boomboxes, table radios, surround-sound gear, and computer speakers were everywhere. But the hi-fi staple of the 1960s and '70s—the plain-vanilla two-channel receiver—was not to be seen. Even if one or two were lurking there, the fact remains that high-quality two-channel audio is now so disconnected from consumer electronics that it's hardly at the "high end" of anything at all. It's a world unto itself.

Everyone knows that advertising people make more money than ordinary people, but many assume that the high pay is because ad writing is so difficult. This is not true. Low-income people can write advertisements, too, so just in case somebody should accost you on the street and ask you to write an advertisement, here is how you may go about it.

Editor's Introduction: In 1963, Stereophile's founder J. Gordon Holt published attacks on what he saw as the single largest step backward in high-fidelity sound reproduction at that time: RCA's introduction of "Dynagroove" LP records, where the recorded signal was pre-distorted and dynamically equalized to compensate for the poor performance of cheap phonograph players. "Issue 5...revealed most of RCA Victor's 'revolutionary' new system as nothing more than a sophisticated way of bringing higher fi to record buyers who don't care enough about hi-fi to invest in a decent playback system." Ten years later, Gordon wrote that, "As of 1974, the best we can say for Dynagroove is that there is no audible evidence of it on current RCA releases." (These articles were reprinted in June 1992, Vol.15 No,6, as part of Stereophile's 30th-anniversary celebrations.)—John Atkinson

We're not really sure who coined the term—it is usually attributed to Alistair Cooke, former host of the "Omnibus" TV program—but "audible wallpaper" is an apt term for something that is of more than passing concern for the serious music listener.

As almost all audiophiles have discovered, headphone cables just don't reach far enough. You want to lie on the sofa for a late night listen, but you find out the cable is about two feet short. You can rearrange your room, buy a cable extender&mdash;or go wireless. That's what <A HREF="http://www.gradolabs.com/">Grado</A&gt; is inviting you to do with the FreeSystems Grado Digital Headphone System.

Radio will finally go digital in 2001. Among the oldest analog media, radio will be the last to make the transition, but it should make much faster headway in the market than digital television has. Satellite digital radio broadcasters <A HREF="http://www.xmradio.com/">XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc</A>. and <A HREF="http://www.siriusradio.com/">Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc</A>. are both on schedule to go live in the coming year, aided by partnerships with automakers to make digital receivers available as options in new cars. A strong automotive aftermarket for digital radio receivers is expected, with some industry insiders predicting that the first models will retail at approximately $100 apiece. Both XM and Sirius will offer multiple channels of music, news, comedy, sports, and talk show entertainment&mdash;all for about $10 per month per subscriber.

Recently, the <A HREF="www.osta.org">Optical Storage Technology Association</A> (OSTA) announced the release of a new CD compatibility specification called "<A HREF="www.osta.org/multiplay">MultiPlay</A>&quot; for the computer and consumer electronics industries. OSTA says that the new specification is intended to ensure that Compact Disc Recordable (CD-R) and Compact Disc ReWritable (CD-RW) discs created on personal computers can also be played in consumer CD and DVD players.