Jon Iverson

The digital music market balances on at least five legs: software producers, technology developers, electronics manufacturers, consumers, and regulating bodies. So, can a two-legged agreement stand? That's the question industry watchers are asking as representatives of two groups, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the technology sector, announced that they have reached agreement on a "core set of principles" to guide their public policy activities regarding the distribution of digital content.

Quad's David Patching was all smiles as he showed off the company's new CD player, called simply the CD-P. No SACD or DVD-A, said Patching, who says they'll wait until either a ton of high-rez discs are sold (not just produced) or until the format war is over and a clear winner emerges.

Back to the Alexis Park for a press conference with Classic Records, which has decided to release its first DVD-Audio disc around February 15. Classic was one of the very first labels to take advantage of the original DVD specification's ability to hold a 24/96 two-channel audio track, and it started releasing DAD discs exactly five years ago. The company's first DVD-A release will be the Vanguard title <I>Songs of the Auvergne</I>, which will feature a 24/192 two-channel DVD-A track and 24/96 two-channel DVD-V track.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially starts Thursday, but tradition has established Wednesday as the day several major consumer electronics manufacturers hold press events, hoping to get their messages across before the full-scale onslaught of dealers.

In a pre&ndash;Consumer Electronics Show announcement, <A HREF="http://www.ti.com">Texas Instruments</A> says it has integrated its FireWire (IEEE1394), multichannel audio digital signal processor (DSP), and digital amplifier technologies in a single board to demonstrate an all-digital audio system from source to speaker.

<B>STEVE TIBBETTS: <I>A Man About a Horse</I></B><BR> Steve Tibbetts, guitar, percussion; Jim Anton, bass; Marc Anderson, Marcus Wise, percussion<BR> ECM 1814 (CD). 2002. Steve Tibbetts, prod., eng. ADD. TT: 45:07<BR> Performance <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics ****&#189;</B>

Imagine this: You're a modern kind of audiophile, and your music library is loaded and sorted (without any compression, of course) onto a hard-disk&ndash;based audio system which is networked throughout the house. You've also got a hard-disk&ndash;based audio system in your car.