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Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc., the national electronics retail chain, has teamed with Sonos, Inc., developer of wireless multiroom music systems for the digital home, to bring "the digital home experience directly to the retail floor." The retailer will run broadband Internet connections to Sonos Digital Music System point-of-sale displays at over 150 Tweeter locations, to give music lovers live demonstrations of music server systems.

On May 10, Tweeter Home Entertainment Group announced that it has insufficient working capital to cover its long- and short-term costs and may have to consider filing for Chapter 11. The immediate cause of the shortfall is the cost of closing 49 stores and two distribution centers. This Week in Consumer Electronics reported specifically that lump sum payments to lease-holding landlords was a contributory factor.

Last week, Tweeter">http://www.twtr.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc. announced that the company has reached an agreement in principle to acquire DOW Stereo/Video, Inc., located in San Diego, California. DOW is a nine-store specialty consumer-electronics retailer with sales of approximately $38 million, and has been in business in the San Diego market for over 30 years. The transaction is expected to be completed on or about July 1, 1999. Tweeter says it will pay approximately $5.5 million for the company excluding acquisition costs, and has the option of paying approximately $500,000 of the purchase price in Tweeter common stock.

It has been a fraught week for Tweeter Newco LLC, the A/V specialty chain acquired by Shultze Asset Management in July. On August 17, the company trimmed its corporate staff by "half," approximately 80 staffers at the home office in Canton, MA. It was the second corporate re-structuring since January, when 20% of the corporate staff was laid off.

On October 19, 2006, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) honored the latest 12 members of the CEA Hall of Fame at its awards dinner at the San Francisco CEA Industry Forum.

It's a brave new audio world: Coinciding with last week's release of Medeski, Martin & Wood's latest work, The Dropper, to retailers' shelves as a polycarbonate-and-aluminum CD, Liquid">http://www.liquidaudio.com">Liquid Audio announced that the title was simultaneously being made available as a full-album digital download. Liquid reports that this is the first time a Blue">http://www.bluenote.com">Blue Note title has been released in a digital format at the same time as its physical release.

You read that correctly. 2017 will see the advent of two, potentially competing high-end audio shows, located just 35 miles and several congested freeways apart in Southern California. The first, the new Los Angeles Audio Show (LAAS), will take place June 2–4 in the Sheraton Gateway LAX, and is produced "in collaboration with the Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society" (LAOCAS). The second, a continuation of T.H.E. Show Newport that was founded by the late Richard Beers and formerly supported by LAOCAS, will be held September 21–24 (September 21 reserved for press) in the Hilton Anaheim, near Disneyland.