<I>Stereophile</I> writers and editors were saddened to learn of the June 27 death of colleague Timothy White, editor-in-chief of <A HREF="http://www.billboard.com"><I>Billboard</I></A&gt; magazine. White collapsed of an apparent heart attack in an elevator at <I>Billboard</I>'s New York offices and died shortly thereafter at St. Vincent's Hospital. He was 50.

The copy cat will soon be out of the bag down under. Australia's musical copyright society has reluctantly agreed to the deployment of CD-copying kiosks throughout the nation in exchange for what an Australian news site calls "a modest royalty payment" of about 6% of the $5AUS copying fee&mdash;or 30&#162; per disc.

We've learned to pretty much ignore consumer electronics company announcements for their latest CD and DVD players/burners. The usual "breakthrough" turns out to be yet another faster record/playback speed bump, or a longer list of compatible formats (Panasonic's latest recorder, announced last week, can handle&mdash;take a deep breath&mdash;DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, and CD-ROM discs).

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fianc&#233;e. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"