Even though the calendar year starts January 1 (or, if you're in the electronics industry, with the January CES), many of us still think of Labor Day as the beginning of the year. That's when school always started&mdash;or, again if you're in the electronics industry, the week after is when CEDIA's (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) Expo takes place. As the show has grown over the years, it has also become the kick-off to the important (and, hopefully, lucrative) end-of-the-year sales season, with many companies debuting significant products they hope will make <I>their</I> Q4 profitable.

My eyes were inexorably drawn to a surprising headline this morning: "New Studies Say Universe Younger than Objects In It." A study by Indiana University's Michael Pierce has just been published establishing a new value for "Hubble's Constant" (the ratio of velocity to distance for distant, receding galaxies) which suggests that the universe may be as young as 7 billion years old; at the same time, researchers at Harvard are saying that the universe is somewhere between 9 and 14 billion years old. Quite a discrepancy! (A billion here, a billion there&mdash;pretty soon you're talking <I>real</I> age.)

In a surprising move, the San Francisco Symphony has announced plans to release the next installment in its ongoing Mahler series, the beloved Symphony 5, in download format before issuing the recording on hybrid SACD/CD. The Fifth will first become available on iTunes on September 12, and in hard format three weeks later. Such an unprecedented release schedule, from one of the few symphony orchestras in the world to regularly record in the high-resolution SACD format, can be seen as part of a near-universal recognition among record labels of the importance of online sales.

Naxos, possibly the world's largest classical music label, has taken a leap into the virtual universe of digital downloading. In an unprecedented collaboration&mdash;including Naxos of America, the country's largest independent distributor of classical music; eMusic, the world's second-largest digital music service; and bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Borders&mdash;Naxos has introduced MPkey, an exclusive series of downloadable classical music collections. Available for purchase only at bricks-and-mortar retailers (and exclusively at Borders stores through December 1), MPkey enables consumers to painlessly download pre-selected Naxos collections of classical music.

As readers of the <I>Stereophile</I> eNewsletter will be aware, the twin subjects of distributing music around my home and integrating my iTunes library of recordings into my high-end system have occupied much of my attention the past year. I bought an inexpensive Mac mini to use as a music server, using an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple">Airport Express</A> as a WiFi hub, which worked quite well, but my big step forward was getting a Squeezebox. I described this slim device in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/306Bstph.html">mid-March</…; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/406Bstph.html">mid-April</…; eNewsletters; I urge readers to read those reports to get the full background on this impressive device. In addition, the forums and Wiki pages on the <A HREF="http://www.slimdevices.com/dev_overview.html">Slim Devices website</A> offer a wealth of information on getting the most from a Squeezebox.

As readers of the <I>Stereophile</I> eNewsletter will be aware, the twin subjects of distributing music around my home and integrating my iTunes library of recordings into my high-end system have occupied much of my attention the past year. I bought an inexpensive Mac mini to use as a music server, using an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple">Airport Express</A> as a WiFi hub, which worked quite well, but my big step forward was getting a Squeezebox. I described this slim device in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/306Bstph.html">mid-March</…; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/406Bstph.html">mid-April</…; eNewsletters; I urge readers to read those reports to get the full background on this impressive device. In addition, the forums and Wiki pages on the <A HREF="http://www.slimdevices.com/dev_overview.html">Slim Devices website</A> offer a wealth of information on getting the most from a Squeezebox.

As readers of the <I>Stereophile</I> eNewsletter will be aware, the twin subjects of distributing music around my home and integrating my iTunes library of recordings into my high-end system have occupied much of my attention the past year. I bought an inexpensive Mac mini to use as a music server, using an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple">Airport Express</A> as a WiFi hub, which worked quite well, but my big step forward was getting a Squeezebox. I described this slim device in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/306Bstph.html">mid-March</…; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/406Bstph.html">mid-April</…; eNewsletters; I urge readers to read those reports to get the full background on this impressive device. In addition, the forums and Wiki pages on the <A HREF="http://www.slimdevices.com/dev_overview.html">Slim Devices website</A> offer a wealth of information on getting the most from a Squeezebox.