I have a way of grating on people's nerves. Ask Marina, my wife. She calls it my "mean streak."

I have a way of grating on people's nerves. Ask Marina, my wife. She calls it my "mean streak."

Sales of recorded music declined by 9.2% on a monetary basis and 11% on a unit basis worldwide during the first half of 2002, according to recently released figures from the <A HREF="http://www.ifpi.org">International Federation of the Phonographic Industry</A> (IFPI). The drop is a continuation of a long slump that began in the mid-1990s, blamed by many music industry executives on the widespread use of CD burners and the popularity of downloading tunes on the Internet. Others acknowledge that increasing competition for consumers' time and money&mdash;especially films on DVD&mdash;is eating into music industry profits.

Beginning early next year, digital satellite radio startups may have some competition from terrestrial broadcasters, thanks to an October 10 decision by the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov">Federal Communications Commission</A> (FCC).

Media critics may be right: If record companies had spent as much effort building a digital distribution network as they have fighting digital piracy, they might actually be making money online instead of complaining about it. This is the conclusion of a new report from KPMG and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

For years, we've seen attempts to disguise <A HREF="http://www.audiocircuit.com/9041-esl-circuit/Commercial/Audio4-AU4/9041… as paintings</A>. A pair of announcements last week highlights the ongoing drive within the consumer electronics industry to find new ways to hide speakers within other objects.

Amplifier of the year? We'll have to wait until the votes are tallied in the December issue, but Paul Bolin reviews the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/683/">Halcro dm58 monoblock power amplifier</A> and reveals what the fuss is all about. As Bolin notes, "the sheer audacity of Halcro's claims generated much curiosity and interest."

A long-running dispute between the music industry and small webcasters may have come to an amicable conclusion. Over the weekend of October 5-6, representatives from both sides agreed on a system of royalties to be paid to record labels and artists based on a percentage of webcaster revenue or expenses, rather than on a per song basis. Last summer, Librarian of Congress James Billington decreed that all webcasters should pay a royalty rate of 0.07&#162; per song per 1000 listeners. Many small webcasters, including many college radio stations, chose to go offline rather than face fees they couldn't afford.

<I>Revolutionary</I> is a word that's tossed around all too lightly in the world of audio. The understandable impulse to tout every new development as a quantum leap forward in sound reproduction has made it difficult to sort out the evolutionary from the truly groundbreaking. And there's not that much left to do in amplifier design that is worthy of being described as "revolutionary," or so it seems. Vacuum-tube circuitry has been thoroughly understood since the late 1940s, and 40 years of development of solid-state has rendered it, in its finest implementations, a worthy competitor and alternative to the venerable tube.