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Thanks to an agreement reached in October, musicians, rather than their record labels, will receive royalty payments for the use of recordings distributed over the Internet or broadcast over cable and satellite systems. Royalty collection agency SoundExchangehttp://www.soundexchange.com">SoundExchange; will distribute payments directly to performers, regardless of their contracts with the record companies, according to a statement issued the second week of November.

Texas">http://www.ti.com">Texas Instruments says it is on a quest to provide "high-performance audio solutions" for the home entertainment market. To prove it, last week the company announced its first stereo analog-to-digital converters supporting the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) specification and the Super Audio CD format (SACD).

For his review of the diminutive Acarian">http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/445/">Acarian Systems Alón Petite loudspeaker, Wes Phillips explains that the "li'l guys frequently image like bandits—which some of us just can't resist." Also included is Robert J. Reina's followup review of Alón's matching PW-1 woofer system, from February 1997, along with his take on the Alón Petite.

The economic outlook may be gloomy, but there are bright spots here and there. One is Indianapolis-based Klipsch">http://www.klipsch.com">Klipsch Audio Technologies, which, on November 5, announced a bold expansion program that will add more than 200 people to its workforce.

Neither Verancehttp://www.verance.com">Verance; nor Digimarchttp://www.digimarc.com">Digimarc; have made friends in the consumer world, as they continue to develop and implement watermarking technologies used to restrict the use of digital media, such as DVD-Audio and CD discs. Audiophiles, in particular, are resisting any form of restriction technology, such as watermarking, that alters the digital data on a disc at the expense of audio fidelity.

Audiophiles almost universally agree that hearing—or "auditory perception" to neuroscientists—improves with practice. That phenomenon would explain why many of us are able to hear differences between audio components that untrained listeners can't hear.

Most folks have enough room in their homes (some college students excepted) to easily place 100W amplifiers without regard to size or heat. But in the car, high-powered amps have always been relegated to the trunk or under a seat, often requiring creative solutions for anything with real heft.