Sometimes you have to wonder why big corporations gobble up small speaker companies. Most such firms are built by individualist entrepreneurs chasing an elusive dream—an up-close and personal thing that is the antithesis of the corporate mentality. That's why speaker companies are so often named after the founder.

Progress toward a working digital radio technology took a big step forward in April with the addition of <A HREF="http://http://www.lowpassprototype.com/">Lowpass Prototype Inc.</A> to the development team. According to an April 27 press release, <A HREF="http://www.usadr.com/">USA Digital Radio, Inc.</A>, a privately held digital radio technology company owned by the nation's largest radio broadcasters, has added the manufacturer of radio-frequency systems for radio and television transmission to its coalition to develop and commercialize digital AM and FM radio.

It's been an up-and-down week for consumer-electronics companies, as revealed by recent earnings reports surfacing around the globe. First, the bad news: <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A&gt; reports that its profits fell 32% in the latest fiscal year, and cites the strong yen for depressing the value of the consumer-electronics and entertainment company's overseas earnings.

The roller-coaster fortunes of <A HREF="http://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com</A&gt; took a downturn April 28, when US district judge Jed S. Rakoff found in favor of the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America</A> in its copyright-violation suit against Internet music site MP3.com. Investors in the once&ndash;high-flying startup immediately began unloading shares of the company's stock, which had dropped 40% by the end of the trading day.

In hopes of stoking the multichannel DVD-Audio engine, <A HREF="http://www.burrbrown.com">Burr-Brown</A&gt; announced last week the PCM1604 audio digital-to-analog converter, which they describe as a high-performance, 6-channel audio DAC featuring 24-bit capability and 192kHz sampling, for use in a "wide variety of multichannel audio applications."

Jonathan Scull thinks he has uncoverd <I>the</I> hot audiophile topic for the new millennium&mdash;e-commerce. He lays out the situation in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//finetunes/224/">"Fine Tunes" #19</A>. Find out what various manufacturers are up to, and why.

The numbers are looking better for <A HREF="http://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com</A&gt;, the music-archiving site under <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10657/">attack</A&gt; by the Recording Industries Association of America and its <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10708/">allies</A&gt;. Despite the legal pressure, MP3.com has seen its revenues surge as the popularity of downloadable music continues to grow. On April 20, the San Diego&ndash;based company reported that its revenue increased to $17.5 million for the first quarter of 2000 compared to $666,000 for the same period a year earlier. MP3.com now has 10 million registered users, according to CEO Michael Robertson.