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Al Stiefel, 66, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, died suddenly and unexpectedly in Denver on January 27. His wife of 22 years, RMAF mainstay Marjorie Baumert, was at his side.

Alan Lomax, the folklorist and musicologist whose work spurred the folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s, died on Friday, July 19 at a nursing home in Safety Harbor, FL. He was 87.

One cliché that never loses its aptness is "end of an era." And it certainly applies to the passing on October 29 of SME’s founder, Alastair Robertson-Aikman. While there remain a handful of survivors from the original "golden age" of audio, few of them were still active in 2006. AR-A, as he was known to friends and staff, wasn’t simply still active: he was still tweaking his sound system and planning new products.

There are several easy ways to start arguments among music fans: ask for a list of the most significant albums of all time, or who the greatest songwriters are, or the best bands, or ask which albums sported the all-time greatest covers.

Deutsche Grammophon and Decca/London have announced a first in the history of opera on DVD: the simultaneous release of Mozart's entire oeuvre of operas and operatic fragments. Captured live at the 2006 Salzburg Festival as part of the 250th-anniversary celebration of Mozart's birth, the 19 DVDs feature striking productions of all 22 operas, plus a wealth of bonus interviews with conductors, singers, and other members of the artistic team.

On May 17, XM Satellite Radio was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which alleged that Pioneer's personal portable XM device, the">http://www.xm-radio-satellite.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=… Inno, infringes on copyrights and essentially represents a digital download device.

There have been even further developments on the Sony BMG root kit debacle since the last time we updated">http://stereophile.com/news/112105sonys/">updated you. The reports that Sony artists were unhappy that the company had been caught compromising consumers' computers were confirmed by Newsweekhttp://businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_343542.ht…;. That magazine reported that Trey Anastasio's Shine, which was released on November 1, the day after the story broke, sold 15,000 copies in its first week, but plummeted to 7,000 by week two, when the story was all over the press. Since then, all 52 albums with the XCD "protection" have been pulled. Patrick Jordon, director of marketing at Red Light Management, which reps Anastasio, said, "It's been damaging, and certainly we're going to discuss that with the label."