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Genesis Technologies, one of the audio industry's most respected names throughout the 1990s, has ceased operation and has filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 7 of US bankruptcy law. The company's website (www.gen-tech.com) has gone dark. Genesis was more than a million dollars in debt near the end, according to a source familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It's widely acknowledged that the American economy is in a downturn, but some economic indicators point otherwise.

As Jonathan Scull reports in his review of the Class&#233">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/474/">Classé Omega Super Audio CD player, "Classé has guts. These are uncertain times, but here they are with an audiophile classic: an expensive two-channel Super Audio CD player." Read how one of the first SACD machines from a high-end audio company stacks up.

XM">http://www.xmradio.com">XM Satellite Radio Holdings is now in a position to operate well into the fourth quarter of 2002, thanks to a $129 million stock offering underwritten by Morgan Stanley Company. XM made the announcement in a press release dated December 10.

The received wisdom has it that among the billions of humans on earth, no two have identical fingerprints, no matter how closely related they are.

It seems that all of the forces in the music industry have lately been conspiring against the music lover and audiophile. The record labels and their hired gun, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), have so far blocked digital outputs on high-resolution audio players, insisted that watermarks be inserted into both high- and low-resolution audio data, and have even started to restricthttp://www.stereophile.com/news/11178/">restrict; consumer's fair use of compact discs and digital downloads.

Over-the-air classical music broadcasting is becoming increasingly rare, but classical has got a huge listenership on the Internet, according to a survey by rating service Arbitron">http://www.arbitron.com">Arbitron, Inc., which early this month announced that three classical music stations were among the five most listened to on the Internet.