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Added to the Archives This Week

With the February issue hitting newstands, it's time once again to honor those twirling discs that also made our heads spin, with "2002 Records To Die For." Stereophile's staff and writers all check in with their eclectic batches of musical heaven.

John Atkinson stumbles upon the Canton Karat Reference 2 DC loudspeaker, and wonders where this company has been all his audiophile life. JA notes, "With its metallic-silver lacquer finish, the Reference 2 DC is a handsome speaker standing some 4' tall." And then there's the sound.

Michael Fremer wanted to hear the Kharma Midi-Grand…

The PC To CE Stampede

Times are obviously tough for personal computer manufacturers, who, in the quest for new sources of revenue, are increasingly dipping their toes into consumer electronics waters. The latest firm to join IBM, Intel, and Compaq (see previous) in the rushing stream is Hewlett-Packard which announced last week the expansion of the company's drive into the living room. HP says that its new initiative is intended to "blend interactive product innovations with easy-to-use services and offer consumers new ways to enjoy digital music, streaming video, and Internet information in the living room."

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Added to the Archives This Week

As Robert J. Reina writes in his review of the JMlab Chorus 706 loudspeaker, "The most exciting development in audio today isn't multichannel surround, single-ended triodes, or $10,000 phono cartridges. It's 'trickle down.'" Find out just what has trickled into the Chorus from the company's highly regarded Utopia line.

How often does the sequel live up to the original? For his review of the Dynaudio Evidence Temptation loudspeaker, Larry Greenhill spins some music to find out. LG asks, "Could Dynaudio transfer the Evidence Master's technological advances and musical magic to a less…

New Copyright Bill Clears Congressional Hurdle

Protection for the creative community or job security for lawyers? These are but two of many interpretations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which won approval by voice vote in the US House of Representatives August 4. The bill will implement into US law the treaties signed by 157 signatories at the World Intellectual Properties Organization conference in Geneva in December 1996. A separate version was passed by the Senate in May. Differences between the two must be ironed out before a final version can be signed into law by President Clinton.

"Many countries around the world…

Making A List; Checking It Twice

As we enter the week of The Home Entertainment Show (HE2005), you can almost hear the audio industry holding its breath, waiting for the Show's April 28 opening date to announce new products, alliances, and strategies. However, despite the lack of hard news coming across the www.stereophile.com newsdesk this week, we have been receiving almost daily hints concerning the must-hear products and rooms awaiting us at the Hilton New York Hotel.

As long-time fans of the late Douglas Adams' books, we are excited about a free showing of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at 7:30pm on Saturday,…

Oh-oh, It's MAGIX!

We were walking back from lunch the other day with a fellow audiophile who announced that he was selling his audio-component–quality hard-disk–based recorder without ever having used it.

We asked, "What about your plans to convert all of your LPs to uncompressed audio files?"

"We had a baby, which pretty much took care of all that theoretical spare time I was going to spend marking tracks and de-clicking songs," he responded.

If his eBay auction hasn't ended already, MAGIX audio cleaning lab 10 just might automate the process and put his conversion scheme back on track. MAGIX…

Violin Like You've Never Heard It Before!

Did they capture the sound of her violin? Did the nuance of a 9' Steinway grand piano translate onto the disc with all of its dynamic range intact? Hear for yourself when Ida Levin and Delores Stevens mark the debut of Stereophile's latest recording, Duet, with two live performances at HI-FI '98.

For Duet, internationally renowned violinist Ida Levin has chosen three works, by composers Janßcek, Schulhoff, and Enescu, created in Eastern Europe between the two World Wars---a "ceaselessly fascinating" period when "composers flourished with particular expressiveness, moved in part by the…

EMI Will Try Digital Downloads

Digital downloading is all the rage with the major record labels. EMI Recorded Music, a unit of EMI Group PLC, announced May 10 that it will make some of its massive catalog available as digital downloads beginning this summer. More than 100 albums and 40 singles will be offered on a trial basis, according to a company press release dated May 10. EMI's musical spectrum covers every genre, including pop, rock, jazz, classical, Latin, Christian, country, rap/urban, and dance—a roster of approximately 1500 artists. Labels under the EMI umbrella include Capitol, Angel, Blue Note, EMI,…

NHT's "Room 2 Room" Series

"Whole-house entertainment systems" and "ease of use" may be anathema for many audiophiles, but they bring joy to the lives of many music lovers—as they seem to do for manufacturers with a keen eye on the bottom line.

Benicia, CA–based NHT (Now Hear This) is one such company. At this coming week's CEDIA Expo 2004 in Indianapolis, NHT plans to unveil a new series of stylish, compact electronics components designed to deliver high performance audio and composite video in up to four different rooms throughout the house.

Like NHT's Evolution series and Pro line of components, the company'…

Somebody Let Them Know It's Not Quite Set Yet . . .

In anticipation of the upcoming 1.0 DVD-Audio specification (see previous article), Sonic Solutions and Warner Music Group wasted no time in announcing their intent to collaborate in creating new multichannel high-density recordings to showcase the new format. Warner was one of the first major labels to deliver music via CD, and Warner's video division has never been shy in their support of Open-DVD for video. So it comes as no surprise that they're one of the first major music houses out of the gate for the audio version of DVD.

What is surprising, however, is that Warners decided not to…