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Chicago dealer Musical Artisans will host their winter open-house event on Saturday, November 14, from 6:30–9:30pm, featuring the North American premiere of four exciting products. Ulrik Madsen, President and lead engineer at Argento Audio and Organic Audio will present the official introduction of the new Organic Reference cable line, and the world premiere of the FMR Extreme Edition interconnects. Irv Gross, Vice President of Sales at Constellation Audio will present the Virgo III preamplifier and all-new Centaur II amplifier in their first appearance at a US dealer. Allan Moulton, US Market Representative for Kharma, will debut the new-generation Exquisite Midi-Grand loudspeakers featuring the radical new F-Driver technology.

In a decision delivered in late December, China's top court has elevated intellectual property theft from misdemeanor status to felony. The move may be a sea change for the giant Asian nation, where piracy has long been a way of life.

Sorting through the rooms of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), we'll often discover interesting companies only to find that they are not yet represented in the US. Such has been the case with Cyrus">http://www.cyrus.co.uk/">Cyrus Electronics, which has always intrigued us with its compact products and modern design sensibility in the tradition of a Linn or Meridian.

Thursday, November 8, 4–8pm: Audio High (165 Moffett Boulevard, Mountain View, CA) will host John Franks of Chord Electronics. Franks will introduce the latest edition to Chord’s Reference line, the DSX1000 network player. For more info, e-mail jez@audiohigh.com, call (650) 964-4000, or visit the Audio High website.

Only a few days remain until Christmas. Trees, tinsel, twinkling lights, and . . . tunes. It's the audiofool's most dreaded time of the year, when he once again suffers through his nine-thousandth experience of Bing Crosby crooning "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Sheer torture.

In a move some industry analysts characterized as "an uncertain experiment that could backfire," Circuit City Stores, Inc, the nation's second-largest electronics retailer, laid off 3400 employees, about 8% of the company's workforce, on March 28 because they earned too much money. Company spokesperson Bill Cimino told Bloomberg.com that the jobs that were eliminated were paying "well above" market rates, adding that the fired employees can re-apply for their jobs at lower pay after a 10-week delay. Cimino declined to give the wages of either the fired employees or the wages being given to new hires. He said it would vary "depending on the market."

Cirrus">http://www.cirrus.com">Cirrus Logic Inc. has introduced two new high-performance analog-to-digital converters. The CS5361 and CS5351 are said to deliver professional sound quality for audio/video receivers (AVRs) and DVD recorders (DVD-Rs) at mainstream consumer prices. The new chips are OEM-priced at $4.95 and $3.95 respectively, in quantities of 10,000 or more.