In this age of the major record labels maximizing music profits at all costs, even if it involves installing spyware on consumers' computers, <A HREF="http://www.magnatune.com">www.Magnatune.com</A&gt; stands apart. The website offers entire albums' worth of music of high quality for download in a choice of formats, from highest-quality MP3 (three times the size of iTunes MP3 files) to CD-quality WAV files. It also gives 50% of the money it collects directly to its artists. Magnatune founder John Buckman, 36, who divides his time between London and Berkeley, chose the site's motto: "Internet Music Without the Guilt: Magnatune, the open music record label."

It has now been over a month since Mark Russinovich broke the story about Sony BMG's DRM software that installed root kit code onto consumers' hard drives&mdash;exposing infected computers to malware intrusions and reporting back to Sony's servers via spyware installed without consumers' knowledge or consent. Rather than growing stale, however, the story just keeps going and going as new details come to light almost every day.

<I>Nagra USA:</I> The Kudelski Group has announced that Nagra USA, Inc. has appointed John R. Quick of Tempo Sales & Marketing its national sales manager for the United States. Quick was formerly national sales manager for Aerial Acoustics and has experience in high-end A/V sales, system engineering, project management, and control systems integration.

Although I retain a firm hold on the established audio world, and recognize and value all that it has achieved, I feel inexorably driven to make some space in my life for single-ended amplifiers&mdash;more especially, those that eschew negative feedback (footnote 1). A classic if costly example of the art is the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/740">Cary CAD-805C</A>, which, to my ears, has earned the right to teach audiophiles what negative feedback really sounds like, and what damage it can do to the musical message when poorly handled. This shouldn't be taken as an out-of-hand dismissal of those many great pieces of electronics and amplification that use negative feedback&mdash;it is simply an acknowledgment, or even an assertion that negative feedback generates a sound of its own.

Although I retain a firm hold on the established audio world, and recognize and value all that it has achieved, I feel inexorably driven to make some space in my life for single-ended amplifiers&mdash;more especially, those that eschew negative feedback (footnote 1). A classic if costly example of the art is the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/740">Cary CAD-805C</A>, which, to my ears, has earned the right to teach audiophiles what negative feedback really sounds like, and what damage it can do to the musical message when poorly handled. This shouldn't be taken as an out-of-hand dismissal of those many great pieces of electronics and amplification that use negative feedback&mdash;it is simply an acknowledgment, or even an assertion that negative feedback generates a sound of its own.

Although I retain a firm hold on the established audio world, and recognize and value all that it has achieved, I feel inexorably driven to make some space in my life for single-ended amplifiers&mdash;more especially, those that eschew negative feedback (footnote 1). A classic if costly example of the art is the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/740">Cary CAD-805C</A>, which, to my ears, has earned the right to teach audiophiles what negative feedback really sounds like, and what damage it can do to the musical message when poorly handled. This shouldn't be taken as an out-of-hand dismissal of those many great pieces of electronics and amplification that use negative feedback&mdash;it is simply an acknowledgment, or even an assertion that negative feedback generates a sound of its own.