On December 19, the Concord Music Group announced its acquisition of Telarc International Corporation, which includes the venerable audiophile label Telarc and the instrumental jazz and world music label Heads Up. Concord already owned many formerly independent labels such as Peak, Playboy Jazz, Stretch, and Concord Picante; in 2004, it acquired Fantasy Records, which encompassed Milestone, Pablo, Prestige/New Jazz, Riverside/Jazzland, Stax/Volt/Enterprise, Specialty, Takoma, and others.

In the December 2005 issue of the UK magazine <I>Hi-Fi Plus</I>, editor Roy Gregory announces that Absolute Multimedia, Inc., publisher of <I>The Absolute Sound</I> and <I>The Perfect Vision</I> magazines, has purchased the British audio journal.

Here in the office, on Christmas Eve Eve, it's just me and the crickets. Wes Phillips, <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/wesphillips/">man of many links</a>, tells me that <a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1648623,00.htm… are known to shed a leg if they get caught in a sticky situation, but only if they have had sex first</a>.

"Like my speaker? I have another one over there."

"I think the lead channel needs more bite!"

Well, actually they said E differs from mc2 by at most 0.0000004, which is "consistent with equality."

Yet they've been largely ignored by the industry. I don't expect it to change either. My take is that women are buying more e-gear now because a lot of the tech has become mature&mdash;for example, you can buy a five megapixel camera for a reasonable price this year. But watch how the industry tries to court the female consumer. You'll see brighter colors and "simpler interfaces" billed as woman-friendly. Sheesh, most women want what <I>I</I> want: a good product at a good price. Instead, they get vanity mirrors.

My wife has suspected this for years.