At the end of July, UK-based TAG McLaren Audio, which had been experiencing difficult trading conditions and was reducing its workforce, issued a rather pessimistic <A HREF=&rdquo; http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1701&rdquo;>announcement</A&gt;. The core of the announcement concerned the firm's commencement of "a full strategic review of its participation in the audio market."

It's been a rough year for the music industry&mdash;and possibly an even rougher one for audiophile labels. The Dorian Group, however, seems to be thriving. Parent company to Dorian Recordings, the Dorian Group announced last week its acquisition of Reference Recordings. During its 25 years in business, RR has consistently garnered praise from audiophiles for the sound quality of its recordings, and has scored eight Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards.

DVD-Audio is getting a boost from several directions.

To combat lackluster CD sales and online file trading, some record labels have been adding bonus DVDs to new releases to get consumers to buy them instead of downloading the data. DVD-Audio proponents, in an attempt to counter Super Audio Compact Disc's single-disc hybrid SACD/CD strategy, have been trying to figure out how to combine CD functionality and DVD-A onto one disc.

More from the August issue: Larry Greenhill updates his system with the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/905/">Mark Levinson No.436 monoblock power amplifier</A>. LG says, "I was concerned when [Mark Levinson] discontinued its entire 300 series of dual-mono amplifiers, but the company reassured me that they had a suitable replacement in the No. 436." Greenhill decides for himself.

Responding to scrutiny by federal legislators, the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) is backing away from the pursuit of small-scale copyright violators. After issuing more than 1000 subpoenas against alleged music pirates, the trade group announced on August 18 that it would go after only big fish in its efforts to contain the file-sharing epidemic.

Ever since the introduction of high-resolution digital formats, audiophiles have been waiting for the smoke from the format wars to settle. What would the winning software be? DVD-Audio? DVD-Video? SACD? 24 bits at 96kHz or 192kHz? As new formats struggled to establish themselves, upconverting technology became commonplace for the playback of the familiar 16-bit/44.1kHz "Red Book" CD format. What to do? Invest large amounts of cash in a system that played "Red Book" (maybe with upconverting, but if so, by how much?) and one other format, and hope that you've bet right? And what about movies on them new-fangled DVDs, Tex?

Ever since the introduction of high-resolution digital formats, audiophiles have been waiting for the smoke from the format wars to settle. What would the winning software be? DVD-Audio? DVD-Video? SACD? 24 bits at 96kHz or 192kHz? As new formats struggled to establish themselves, upconverting technology became commonplace for the playback of the familiar 16-bit/44.1kHz "Red Book" CD format. What to do? Invest large amounts of cash in a system that played "Red Book" (maybe with upconverting, but if so, by how much?) and one other format, and hope that you've bet right? And what about movies on them new-fangled DVDs, Tex?

Ever since the introduction of high-resolution digital formats, audiophiles have been waiting for the smoke from the format wars to settle. What would the winning software be? DVD-Audio? DVD-Video? SACD? 24 bits at 96kHz or 192kHz? As new formats struggled to establish themselves, upconverting technology became commonplace for the playback of the familiar 16-bit/44.1kHz "Red Book" CD format. What to do? Invest large amounts of cash in a system that played "Red Book" (maybe with upconverting, but if so, by how much?) and one other format, and hope that you've bet right? And what about movies on them new-fangled DVDs, Tex?