Jon Iverson

The largest of six divisions of Royal Philips Electronics, <A HREF="http://www.philips.com/">Philips Consumer Electronics Mainstream</A> intends to push the audio industry in several directions this year, according to a presentation made by the division's CEO Guy Demuynck at a January 5 press conference in the Las Vegas Convention Center. Long a dominant force in research and development, as well as in marketing consumer electronics, Philips has great hopes for every segment of the audio market. 2000 was a record year for the company, Demuynck said, and 2001 should be very good as well.

I walked through my local Best Buy recently and didn't see one stereo receiver. Boomboxes, table radios, surround-sound gear, and computer speakers were everywhere. But the hi-fi staple of the 1960s and '70s&mdash;the plain-vanilla two-channel receiver&mdash;was not to be seen. Even if one or two were lurking there, the fact remains that high-quality two-channel audio is now so disconnected from consumer electronics that it's hardly at the "high end" of anything at all. It's a world unto itself.

We've probably all bought an audio product only to find that it sported one or two entirely useless or poorly designed "features." Reader Michael P. Healey wonders what is the most egregious example of a bad feature you can think of?

Editor's Introduction: In 1963, Stereophile's founder J. Gordon Holt published attacks on what he saw as the single largest step backward in high-fidelity sound reproduction at that time: RCA's introduction of "Dynagroove" LP records, where the recorded signal was pre-distorted and dynamically equalized to compensate for the poor performance of cheap phonograph players. "Issue 5...revealed most of RCA Victor's 'revolutionary' new system as nothing more than a sophisticated way of bringing higher fi to record buyers who don't care enough about hi-fi to invest in a decent playback system." Ten years later, Gordon wrote that, "As of 1974, the best we can say for Dynagroove is that there is no audible evidence of it on current RCA releases." (These articles were reprinted in June 1992, Vol.15 No,6, as part of Stereophile's 30th-anniversary celebrations.)—John Atkinson

Everyone knows that advertising people make more money than ordinary people, but many assume that the high pay is because ad writing is so difficult. This is not true. Low-income people can write advertisements, too, so just in case somebody should accost you on the street and ask you to write an advertisement, here is how you may go about it.

Recently, the <A HREF="www.osta.org">Optical Storage Technology Association</A> (OSTA) announced the release of a new CD compatibility specification called "<A HREF="www.osta.org/multiplay">MultiPlay</A>&quot; for the computer and consumer electronics industries. OSTA says that the new specification is intended to ensure that Compact Disc Recordable (CD-R) and Compact Disc ReWritable (CD-RW) discs created on personal computers can also be played in consumer CD and DVD players.

Radio will finally go digital in 2001. Among the oldest analog media, radio will be the last to make the transition, but it should make much faster headway in the market than digital television has. Satellite digital radio broadcasters <A HREF="http://www.xmradio.com/">XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc</A>. and <A HREF="http://www.siriusradio.com/">Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc</A>. are both on schedule to go live in the coming year, aided by partnerships with automakers to make digital receivers available as options in new cars. A strong automotive aftermarket for digital radio receivers is expected, with some industry insiders predicting that the first models will retail at approximately $100 apiece. Both XM and Sirius will offer multiple channels of music, news, comedy, sports, and talk show entertainment&mdash;all for about $10 per month per subscriber.