Jon Iverson

Some long-time <I>Stereophile</I> readers were outraged when the magazine put a photo of a computer soundcard on its cover in September of 2000 <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/280/"&gt;(click here for the review and controversy)</A>. And then, John Atkinson added insult to injury by doing another <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/299/">soundcard review</A> last November. Some readers may have been scratching their heads about why we did it, but at least one manufacturer is getting the message.

On May 23, the <A HREF="http://www.juilliard.edu">Juilliard School of Music</A> announced the selection of 18 instrumentalists who will form the core of the newly-created Juilliard Jazz Orchestra. As orchestra members, the musicians will benefit from tuition-free study at the school's recently established Juilliard Institute for Jazz. The creation of the institute&mdash;a collaboration of the Juilliard School and the "Jazz at Lincoln Center" program&mdash;is an indication that the prestigious institution is further acknowledging the importance of jazz, an indigenous American genre that many critics have called "the classical music of the 20th century."

We get e-mails every week asking what is the best way to create a decent system for a reasonable amount of money (say around $1500 complete). What would be your advice?

It was 15 years ago this week that an enthusiastic John Atkinson was lured <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/352/">From London to Santa Fe</A> to take the helm of <I>Stereophile</I>. As JA recounted back in 1986, "From London, England, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a pretty big jump, both geographically and culturally. From <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> to <I>Stereophile</I>, however, is a mere hop; the similarities overwhelm the differences."

A quickly established favorite among music fans, the <A HREF="http://www.cddb.com">CDDB</A&gt; website provides comprehensive information for tracking who and what appears on just about any CD in existence (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10438/">previous</A&gt;). But as users of the service are discovering, the company that now maintains the database, <A HREF="http://www.gracenote.com">Gracenote</A&gt;, is starting to change the rules of access.

Could the average computer hard drive soon be able to store the equivalent of over 80 DVD-Audio discs or 600 CDs? Last week, <A HREF="http://www.research.ibm.com">IBM</A&gt; announced that it is using just a few atoms of what it has termed "pixie dust" to push back the data storage industry's most formidable barrier, and will effectively quadruple disk drive densities in the next two years.

The <A HREF="http://www.sdmi.org">Secure Digital Music Initiative</A> has decided to reconfirm San Diego&ndash;based <A HREF="http://www.verance.com">Verance Corporation</A>'s watermarking technology as its choice for inhibiting piracy in digitally recorded music. The May 21 announcement was made by the SDMI Plenary after a year-long campaign to evaluate the effectiveness and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10870/">audibility</A&gt; of watermarks from 14 different vendors. The group has also apparently decided to halt further research and development efforts, which have been widely blamed for hobbling the rollout of DVD-Audio.