Good Guys, the California A/V retailer that overextended itself in an aggressive build-up plan that maxed out at 71 stores, is not long for this world. CompUsa, which acquired the chain in 2003, closed six free-standing Good Guys stores and another five CompUSA/Good Guys megastores in late September. CompUSA will close the remaining 25 stores and three regional distribution centers within 80 days&mdash;following <A HREF="http://www.goodguys.com/canv.htm">liquidation sales</A>.

Ray Samuels Audio, long well-regarded for its tube-based home audio components, is developing a reputation for its portable designs, too. After reviewing the <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/headphones/905ray/">SR-71</A&gt;, I figured Samuels couldn't make things any smaller.

I stood in my kitchen, looking around, dumbly: “What am I forgetting?”

Efforts to restrict the ways consumers use music they have purchased continue unabated. <A HREF="http://www.sunncomm.com">SunnComm</A&gt; (along with its sales and marketing arm <A HREF="http://www.mediamaxtechnology.com">MediaMax</A&gt;) has announced that its "newest patent-pending passive technology makes it even more difficult to bypass or 'hack' the copy protection structure contained on the MediaMax CDs."

Is it a trend or just a fad? That's what some of us want to know when we stumble over a new way of doing things, the implication being that a trend is somehow better than a fad.

Is it a trend or just a fad? That's what some of us want to know when we stumble over a new way of doing things, the implication being that a trend is somehow better than a fad.

Is it a trend or just a fad? That's what some of us want to know when we stumble over a new way of doing things, the implication being that a trend is somehow better than a fad.