Long before the Swedes at Ikea did it, the singular Scotsman <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1101ivor/">Ivor Tiefenbrun</A> began giving his products funny-sounding names. For some reason positively phobic about the letter <I>c</I>, he banned its use in any of those names. Someone once told me his real last name is Tiefencrun, but since it wouldn't <I>sound</I> any different with a <I>k</I>, he settled for a <I>b</I>. "I could have been Ivor Tiefendrun, or Tiefenfrun, or Tiefengrun, for that matter," he's quoted as having said once while krunching a krakker.

Long before the Swedes at Ikea did it, the singular Scotsman <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1101ivor/">Ivor Tiefenbrun</A> began giving his products funny-sounding names. For some reason positively phobic about the letter <I>c</I>, he banned its use in any of those names. Someone once told me his real last name is Tiefencrun, but since it wouldn't <I>sound</I> any different with a <I>k</I>, he settled for a <I>b</I>. "I could have been Ivor Tiefendrun, or Tiefenfrun, or Tiefengrun, for that matter," he's quoted as having said once while krunching a krakker.

Before the advent of big-screen projection televisions, manhood was measured more conventionally: by the size of one's crate-sized, boat-anchor-heavy, brushed-aluminum-fronted power amplifiers. Those days are long gone.

Before the advent of big-screen projection televisions, manhood was measured more conventionally: by the size of one's crate-sized, boat-anchor-heavy, brushed-aluminum-fronted power amplifiers. Those days are long gone.

Before the advent of big-screen projection televisions, manhood was measured more conventionally: by the size of one's crate-sized, boat-anchor-heavy, brushed-aluminum-fronted power amplifiers. Those days are long gone.

Before the advent of big-screen projection televisions, manhood was measured more conventionally: by the size of one's crate-sized, boat-anchor-heavy, brushed-aluminum-fronted power amplifiers. Those days are long gone.

Before the advent of big-screen projection televisions, manhood was measured more conventionally: by the size of one's crate-sized, boat-anchor-heavy, brushed-aluminum-fronted power amplifiers. Those days are long gone.

Consumer electronics stores have long carried computer gear, everything from laptops and desktop systems to software and accessories. Computer stores, led by Gateway Country stores, have slowly been moving in the other direction. Now it looks as if convergence in the retail realm is about to take another great leap forward.

The music goes round and round: An investment group led by former Universal Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is in the lead to acquire Warner Music Group (WMG) and Warner/Chappell Music Publishing from corporate parent Time Warner, according to reports issued the third week of November. Bronfman's group&mdash;a consortium of banks and venture capital firms&mdash;has offered $2.8 billion for Time Warner's musical properties, possibly forcing prior suitor EMI Group PLC to drop out of the bidding. On Thursday, November 20, EMI chairman Eric Nicoll told reporters that Time Warner had informed his company of "a possible proposal from another party as an alternative to our own firm offer."

Chip Stern finds the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/1103tjoeb">AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player</A> to be a bargain in its modest price range. CS writes: "Consider the notion of an exceptionally musical, single-chassis CD player with a tubed output stage that evinces the kind of soundstaging depth, liquidity, timbral accuracy, high-frequency detail, and top-to-bottom smoothness for which, barely five years ago, consumers might have eagerly coughed up $3000 and more."