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Paul Bolin exclaims, "Looking at the current digital scene is enough to confuse and confound just about anyone this side of Stephen Hawking." Bolin's review of the Ayre">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/779/">Ayre Acoustics D-1x DVD-Video/CD player is here to clear things up.

Only a month after being scrutinized by the Senate Commerce Committee, Clear Channel Communications may have to explain itself to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In October 2000, during Napster's prolonged courtroom agony, Bertelsmann">http://www.bertelsmann.de">Bertelsmann AG alienated fellow music industry plaintiffs by investing $50 million in a strategic partnership with the file-sharing upstart. At the time, Bertelsmann hoped to leverage Napster's technical expertise and fame to give Bertelsmann Music Group the inside track with Internet music distribution.

Memorial Day is the traditional beginning of summer. This year, it will mark a new chapter for Klipsch">http://www.klipsch.com">Klipsch Audio Technologies.

The">http://www.thewiz.com/wiz/app/CeMain">The Wiz may not be long for this world. On Monday, February 10, Cablevision">http://www.cablevision.com">Cablevision Systems Corporation announced that it would sell or close its remaining 17 consumer electronics stores, all in the New York metro area, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The announcement came only a few days after Circuit City announced major cutbackshttp://www.stereophile.com/news/11569/">cutbacks; of its workforce and the elimination of sales commissions.

The quest to secretly track music fans continues: Royal">http://www.philips.com">Royal Philips Electronics and Digimarchttp://www.digimarc.com">Digimarc; announced last week that they have signed a new agreement that extends the licensing of Digimarc's digital watermarking patents to include audio applications as well as a broader range of video applications.

One might assume that the mutually dependent businesses of electronics manufacturing and retailing would track each other in perfect unison. That's often true, but they can sometimes get wildly out of sync with each other. It's one of the great economic mysteries.