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Wes Phillips writes: "If, as some would have it, Audiophilia nervosa is like the dark night of reason, then certain audio epiphanies must necessarily stand out from a distance, like a grove of trees 20 miles away thrown into stark relief by prairie lightning." In his review of the B&W">http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/207/">B&W Nautilus 801 loudspeaker, WP recounts that "the B&W Nautilus 801 has the stuff to keep me in fireplace fantasies throughout my dotage, and probably well into my (hyper)active middle age to boot."

High-resolution digital audio got a big boost on March 2, when Yamaha Electronics Corporation announced the release of its new RX-V1, a multichannel receiver featuring Burr-Brown PCM 1704 24-bit/96kHz DACs for all 10 channels, including two subwoofer outputs. Six of the channels are full-range with amplifier power of 110W each, with claimed frequency response beyond 100kHz.

How many of you out there know what a Nuvistor is? Michael Fremer takes a look at this unique device and its application in the Musical">http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/205/">Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300 power amplifier. "Enclosing its vacuum in metal rather than glass, the Nuvistor was designed as a long-lived, highly linear device with low heat, low microphony, and low noise—all of which it needed to have any hope of competing in the brave new solid-state world emerging when RCA introduced it in the 1960s." Musical Fidelity decided to use the Nuvistor in a limited-run amplifier, and therein lies an interesting tale, which Michael skillfully uncovers.

In a move that could save exhibitors a considerable amount of money, the 2001 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is being rescheduled for a day earlier than previously announced. Originally planned to run from Sunday, January 7 through Wednesday, January 10, 2001, the show will now begin on Saturday, January 6 and run through Tuesday, January 9.

Conventional wisdom has it that, compared to men, few women express much interest in consumer electronics, and especially audio equipment. In fact, according to Consumer Electronics Association statistics, women accounted for only 22% of the $81 billion spent on consumer electronics in 1999. Prognosticator Jupiter Communcations predicts that, in spite of this, women will account for 46 million online buyers by 2003, and will overtake men in online purchasing.

In a statement that may have far-reaching ramifications for the online digital music-distribution business, last week Sonic">http://www.sonic.com">Sonic Solutions and Sonyhttp://www.sony.co.jp">Sony; announced at the Audio Engineering Society Convention (AES) in Paris that they would collaborate to integrate Sony's ATRAC3 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding 3) into iMaster, Sonic's suite of tools for the preparation of compressed audio for Internet distribution.

Merger mania in high-end land: Loudspeaker manufacturer Hales">http://www.halesdesigngroup.com/">Hales Design Group and digital audio manufacturer Wadia">http://www.wadia.com/">Wadia Digital Corporation are joining forces to create what the companies' executives are calling "new digital products for the new millennium." The announcement was made February 14 at Wadia headquarters in River Falls, Wisconsin.