LATEST ADDITIONS

It's a simple premise: power corrupts. You can buy the finest audio components in the world, but if the foundation of your aural house is rotten, you won't get anything vaguely resembling the level of performance your gear was designed to provide. Over time, I've come to realize just how fragile the audio signal chain is, dependent as it is on electrical sources fatally compromised by all manner of aural schmutz pouring through the local grid. I've become obsessed with figuring out how to liberate my system from the line noise, reactive loads, and voltage anomalies that veil the presentation, obscure resolution, and limit dynamic range.

In the June issue of <I>Stereophile</I>, Art Dudley <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?855&quot; TARGET=NEW>waxes poetic</A> about the virtues of bluegrass music and festivals. What do you think about this acoustic form?

DVD-Audio has been struggling to find its footing for three years now; the average consumer on the street has very likely never even heard of it. Watermarked discs, confusing playback menus, competition from SACD, and a dearth of titles haven't helped, but perhaps the biggest problem DVD-A faces is simply getting the word out.

"Does the modern audiophile want a sleek, compact, powerful, remote-controlled, microprocessor-driven, two-channel integrated amplifier?" Michael Fremer seeks the answer as he reviews the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/858/">Perreaux R200i integrated amplifier</A>. It may be small, but as MF finds, it also packs a punch.

The music world is mourning the passing of British record producer Mickie Most, who died of lung cancer in London on May 30. He was 64.

Sony announced last week that it has created a new brand product line intended to identify its highest end products: <A HREF="http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QUALIA/">Qualia</A&gt;. Initially, the new line will launch only in Japan, and will include both audio and video products in addition to a small pocket camera. Sony President Kunitake Ando had previously suggested the line would launch by March 2003.

There may be hope for the most common type of hearing loss. Researchers at the University of Michigan have succeeded in growing new hair cells in the inner ears of laboratory animals, the first time that such cells have been regenerated in mammals.

Of all the components to be seen and heard at an audio show or in a dealer's showroom, the most memorable and attention-grabbing are inevitably the super-speakers&mdash;bogglingly expensive, filled with cutting-edge engineering and exotic materials, of mammoth size and weight, with full-range reproduction that shakes building foundations and extends far enough up top to disrupt the navigation of bats. Survey the field, and the biggest Wilson, Al&#143;n, JMlab-Focal, Burmester, EgglestonWorks, and Nearfield Acoustics models, to name a few, fit that description.

When I unpacked the review samples of Earthworks' Sigma 6.2 loudspeaker, I was reminded of a Pop Art exhibition I'd visited 30 years before, in London. Along with a stuffed drum kit and other of Claes Oldenburg's exaggerated-scale floppy sculptures, hanging from the Tate Gallery's ceiling was an enormous three-pronged, US-style AC plug made entirely of hardwood (footnote 1). Although the Sigma 6.2 is available in plain-Jane black MDF for $3500/pair, the optional solid-cherry cabinet, with its polished grain-streaked panels, has the same carved-from-solid, feel of the Oldenburg plug. I found myself wanting to stroke the speaker.

Does the modern audiophile want a sleek, compact, powerful, remote-controlled, microprocessor-driven, two-channel integrated amplifier? Perreaux Industries, based in New Zealand, thinks so. They've designed all that, plus good looks and impressive build quality, into the R200i. Despite its relatively small size&mdash;4.1" tall by 16.9" wide by 13.4" deep&mdash;the R200i packs a punch. It's rated at 200Wpc into 8 ohms and 360Wpc into 4 ohms, yet it weighs just a fraction under 30 lbs.