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XM on a roll: Recent marketing efforts appear to be paying off for XM Satellite Radio. On July 2, the satellite radio startup announced that it had exceeded the 2.1-million subscriber mark during the second quarter. More than 418,000 new subscribers signed up during that period—over twice the number recruited in the same quarter last year. XM-compatible products are appearing at an ever-increasing number of retail outlets, leading some observers to believe that the company may have a fighting chance in the long run.

Most audiophiles are generally loathe to think that they'd run their main audio systems from a computer. Last time <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?346">we ran a poll</A>, answers such as this one from David L. Wyatt, Jr. were typical: "Why in the world would I hook my computers to my stereo? If I want to make a compilation CD of the music I have purchased, I'll just burn one."

When I first started buying records at the end of the 1950s, I had this vision of the typical recording engineer: A sound wizard wearing a white lab coat rather than a cloak festooned with Zodiacal symbols. He (it was always a "he," of course) would spare no effort, no expense to create a disc (LPs and 45s were all we had) that offered the highest possible sound quality. At that time I also believed that Elvis going into the Army meant the end of rock'n'roll, that my teachers knew everything, that politicians were honest, that socialism was the best form of government, and that talent and hard work were all you needed to be a success. Those ideas crashed and burned as I grew up, of course, but other than the long-discarded white coats, each new record I bought strengthened rather than weakened my image of the recording engineer.