LATEST ADDITIONS

Bonnie and I decided to avoid the crowds last weekend, and instead settled in at home to watch the recent remake of <I>Great Expectations</I>, with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. It seemed like a pretty good movie, but before long I found my thoughts drifting to the review I had in progress: my audition and analysis of the Magnepan Magneplanar MG3.6/R. True, <I>Great Expectations</I> is a little slow, and a few explosions or car chases might have better held my attention, but if ever there was an audio product to which the phrase "great expectations" applied, it's the Magnepan 3.6/R.

<B>MAHLER: Symphony 6</B><BR> Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Glen Cortese (cond.)<BR>Titanic 257 (CD). 2000. Charles G. Thomas, exec. prod., Jerry Bruck, eng., Michael Karas and Eric Wagner, assoc. engs. AAD? TT: 76:27<BR> Performance: <B>****?</B><BR> Sonics: <B>*****</B>

The public auction of the assets of <A HREF="http://www.wadia.com/">Wadia Digital Corporation</A> has been postponed for at least two weeks, according to an employee of the Minneapolis law firm Siegel, Brill, Greupner, Duffy & Foster, P.A., which is handling the liquidation.

Back in 1997, DVD-Audio was still miles away&mdash;and it may still be! But, as John Atkinson writes, "After a decade of stability, with slow but steady improvement in the quality of 16-bit/44.1kHz audio, the cry among audio engineers is now '24/96!'&mdash;meaning 24-bit data sampled at 96kHz. Not coincidentally, DVD offers audiophiles a medium with the potential for playing back music encoded at this new mastering standard." The <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/259/">dCS Elgar D/A processor</A> was one of the first consumer units able to decode 24/96, and still stands as a benchmark product. JA gives the details.

E<I>ditor's Note: There is a large contingent of </I>Stereophile<I> readers who design and build their own equipment&mdash;the DIY (do it yourself) crowd. Herv&#233; Del&#233;traz from Switzerland has been e-mailing us photos and stories over the last year about his own ambitious DIY amplifier design, so we asked him if he'd be willing to share a chronicle of his progress, starting from the beginning. This is the first in a six-part series written by Mr. Del&#233;traz.</I>

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.bmgentertainment.com/">BMG Entertainment</A>, the music and entertainment division of <A HREF="http://www.bertelsmann.de/">Bertelsmann AG</A>, revealed that it will join several other major labels (see previous stories <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10798/">EMI</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10814/">Universal</A&gt;) by bringing its own digital downloads to the Internet this September. The company says that it will start with approximately 50 songs and 50 complete albums, to be made available via several retail Web outlets at prices ranging from $1.98 to $3.49 per song and from $9.98 to $16.98 per album.

One of the most enduring advertisments for an audio product is Maxell's image of the seated listener with his hair blowing back in the wind created by the tape's alleged sound quality. Have any other marketing campaigns stuck with you?