I wish the domestic audio industry of 2005 were more like the pop-music industry of 2005, with its variety, vitality, and ability to reach beyond its boundaries to move people. And its sense of fun, which hi-fi often seems to entirely lack.

I wish the domestic audio industry of 2005 were more like the pop-music industry of 2005, with its variety, vitality, and ability to reach beyond its boundaries to move people. And its sense of fun, which hi-fi often seems to entirely lack.

I wish the domestic audio industry of 2005 were more like the pop-music industry of 2005, with its variety, vitality, and ability to reach beyond its boundaries to move people. And its sense of fun, which hi-fi often seems to entirely lack.

On mornings when I can get up early enough after a late-night listening session, I take the last express bus from my Brooklyn suburb to <I>Stereophile</I>'s Manhattan office. An inveterate people watcher, I notice that while my fellow travelers and I don't form a traditional queue at the bus stop, preferring instead to mill around in something that resembles a jelly donut, we still enter the bus in the order in which we arrived at the stop. The balance between individualism and social necessity is thus preserved.

On mornings when I can get up early enough after a late-night listening session, I take the last express bus from my Brooklyn suburb to <I>Stereophile</I>'s Manhattan office. An inveterate people watcher, I notice that while my fellow travelers and I don't form a traditional queue at the bus stop, preferring instead to mill around in something that resembles a jelly donut, we still enter the bus in the order in which we arrived at the stop. The balance between individualism and social necessity is thus preserved.

<B>DAVID CHESKY: <I>Area 31</I></B><BR>
<I>The Girl from Guatemala</I>, Flute Concerto, Violin Concerto<BR>
Wonjung Kim, soprano; Jeffrey Khaner, flute; Tom Chiu, violin; Anthony Aibel, Area 31<BR>
Chesky SACD288 (SACD/CD). 2004. David Chesky, David Eggar, prods.; Barry Wolfson, eng.; Rick Eckerle, second eng.; Nicholas Prout, mastering, editing. AAD? TT: 56:31<BR>
Performance <B>****&#189;</B><BR>
Sonics <B>*****</B>

If you find yourself purchasing more new audio gear online each year, you are not alone. A recent study from the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA) reveals that online shopping for consumer electronics products is gaining in popularity. The CEA study finds that an average of 5% of all consumer electronics purchases are made online, with portable audio devices in particular selling more than 10% of product through online channels.

On July 4, a Brazilian website apparently posted some tools that allowed users of <A HREF="http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp">InterVideo's WinDVD</A> to pull copy-protected data off DVD-Audio discs and store it on the user's hard drive rather than simply routing it to a sound card. According to <A HREF="http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6597.cfm">Afterdawn</A&gt;, the tools didn't "do the decryption themselves, [but] instead patched WinDVD to output the decrypted stream to disk instead of the sound card."

<I>Class&#233;'s new player:</I> <A HREF="http://www.classeaudio.com">Class&#233;'s</A&gt; new Delta line of components now includes a DVD player. The $6500 CDP-300 plays DVD-V, DVD-A, standard CD, DualDisc, Video-CD, S-VCD, and JPEG picture discs, in addition to those encoded with MP3, WMA, and AAC audio formats.