Naxos has taken a major step toward distributing higher-quality downloads of classical-music recordings. <A HREF="http://www.classicsonline.com">ClassicsOnline</A&gt;, the label's impressive download site, now offers the world's largest collection of classical-music recordings free of digital rights management (DRM). All of the site's nearly 22,000 albums, from more than 100 independent labels, are available at 320kbps.

The year’s not quite over, but it’s a safe bet that Sonny Rollins’ <I>Road Shows Vol. 1</I> (on his own Doxy label) will be the best jazz album of 2008 and rank among the best of the decade.

It isn't enough to say that engineer <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/404listening">Denis N. Morecroft</A> is one of contemporary audio's few visionaries: He's one of a <I>very</I> few mature designers whose passion for doing things a certain way hasn't abandoned him in the least, and whose well-argued convictions seem stronger than ever. Thus, as others cave in to commerce&#151;the tube-amp designer who offers a solid-state product just to help his dealers fill a price niche, the source-component manufacturer who rails against digital audio one day and starts cranking out CD players the next&#151;DNM Design remains the likeliest of all modern companies to stay its course.

It isn't enough to say that engineer <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/404listening">Denis N. Morecroft</A> is one of contemporary audio's few visionaries: He's one of a <I>very</I> few mature designers whose passion for doing things a certain way hasn't abandoned him in the least, and whose well-argued convictions seem stronger than ever. Thus, as others cave in to commerce&#151;the tube-amp designer who offers a solid-state product just to help his dealers fill a price niche, the source-component manufacturer who rails against digital audio one day and starts cranking out CD players the next&#151;DNM Design remains the likeliest of all modern companies to stay its course.

It isn't enough to say that engineer <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/404listening">Denis N. Morecroft</A> is one of contemporary audio's few visionaries: He's one of a <I>very</I> few mature designers whose passion for doing things a certain way hasn't abandoned him in the least, and whose well-argued convictions seem stronger than ever. Thus, as others cave in to commerce&#151;the tube-amp designer who offers a solid-state product just to help his dealers fill a price niche, the source-component manufacturer who rails against digital audio one day and starts cranking out CD players the next&#151;DNM Design remains the likeliest of all modern companies to stay its course.