LATEST ADDITIONS

Small webcasters have won another reprieve from royalty payments.

Recent news from Universal Music Group should bode well for the SACD format. It's not exactly a flood, but the world's largest music company finally made good on the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11238/">promise</A&gt; it made at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and announced last week its first Super Audio CD (SACD) titles to be released in the United States.

Although the <A HREF="http://www.tweeter.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group</A>'s rate of expansion has slowed, it shows no sign of stopping. The Canton, MA electronics retailer will open six new stores during the month of November.

Internet radio has been in the news a lot recently with heated battles over royalty payments. But we wonder how many of our readers actually use it.

Robert Deutsch says, "There <I>is</I> something special about SETs: a kind of midrange magic, a harmonic rightness that tends to elude other amplifier designs." But how to get more power from a single-ended triode design? In his review of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/687/">Air Tight ATM-211 monoblock power amplifier</A> RD discovers one answer.

Making good on a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11382/">promise</A&gt; made several months back, <A HREF="http://www.avantgarde-acoustic.com/">Avantgarde Acoustic</A> is moving into the retail realm. The company's German-made horn loudspeakers are the featured products at <A HREF="http://www.avantgardemusic.biz">Avantgarde Music & Cinema</A>, a new showroom at 27 West 24th Street, Suite 502 in Manhattan. The store is privately owned and operated by <A HREF="mailto:TheHornStore@aol.com">Bob Visintainer</A>, who emphasized that his business is "definitely Avantgarde focused" but also carries other brands of electronics and accessories.

In August, the future looked cloudy for <A HREF="http://www.sirius.com">Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc.</A> Despite the eventual commercial promise of satellite radio, the startup suffered from massive debt accrued during its development and from a slow initial subscription rate. Company officials had discussed a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11421/">possible bankruptcy filing</A> if additional financing couldn't be found.

The release of our 2001 Recommended Components online last month was such a success, we now offer readers the opportunity to buy the 2002 "Recommended Components" from both the April and October issues as .pdf files.

Legislation establishing royalties to be paid by small webcasters is stalled in the US Senate until after the November elections.

To date, record label attempts at adding copy-control systems to CDs to restrict their use have been less than totally succesful. We've had Sony discs that <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11341/">get stuck in computers</A>, discs that <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11261/">don't reliably play</A> in all CD players, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11247/">trademark violations</A>, and CDs that generate <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11134/">lawsuits</A&gt; and consumer frustration from not being able to create a "fair-use" personal copy of a disc to throw in the car.