1. <a href="http://www.sonicyouth.com/">Sonic Youth</a> &#151; my favorite band &#151; is working on a new album.

This time last year the music industry was ready to celebrate. Compact disc sales were up for the first time in years, peer-to-peer file-sharing networks were reeling from lawsuits, ringtone sales were proving unexpectedly profitable, and legitimate (paid-for, that is) downloads were rising. But this year, Jim Urie, president of Universal Music Group, told <I>The Wall Street Journal</I> that Christmas 2005 was "a bleak holiday season at the end of a bleak year."

On December 16, Congressmen James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced <A HREF="http://static.publicknowledge.org/pdf/HR-4569-DTCSA-Analog-Hole.pdf">HR 4569</A>, a bill "to require certain analog conversion devices to preserve digital content security measures"&mdash;in other words, to mandate that electronic devices and software manufactured after a yet-to-be-specified date respond to a copy protection system or watermark embedded in a video signal and pass that along when converting the signal to analog or vice versa. It also mandates copy protection for analog signals. This is referred to as "plugging the analog hole," since analog signals, even those converted from protected high-definition digital sources, are currently "in the clear" or open for copying. (Standard-definition signals can be protected by systems like Macrovision, but no such protection exists for high-definition signals.)

Street buzz is a force to reckon with. When an audiophile whispers to me that a piece of new equipment sounds unusually good, I'm interested. When two manufacturers of other equipment independently tell me "You've got to listen to this speaker," I get excited.

Street buzz is a force to reckon with. When an audiophile whispers to me that a piece of new equipment sounds unusually good, I'm interested. When two manufacturers of other equipment independently tell me "You've got to listen to this speaker," I get excited.

Street buzz is a force to reckon with. When an audiophile whispers to me that a piece of new equipment sounds unusually good, I'm interested. When two manufacturers of other equipment independently tell me "You've got to listen to this speaker," I get excited.

Street buzz is a force to reckon with. When an audiophile whispers to me that a piece of new equipment sounds unusually good, I'm interested. When two manufacturers of other equipment independently tell me "You've got to listen to this speaker," I get excited.

The last few years at our annual Home Entertainment Show, many readers have come up to me and asked: "How do you select which speakers to review?" In my case, most candidates are either new products that have impressed me when demonstrated at our HE Shows, or new products from manufacturers whose designs have impressed me in the past. Occasionally, editor John Atkinson gets wind of a speaker and asks if I'd like to review it. But once in a while, a manufacturer reads a rave review of a competing product that makes his or her blood boil.