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On August 29, Nonesuch Records gave its first donation of $1 million to Habitat for Humanity International. The funds, raised in only eight months through sales of 150,000 copies of Nonesuch's superb benefit album Our New Orleans 2005, will be used to build homes for displaced musicians and others in the New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village, whose centerpiece will be the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

Andy Regan, NHT's senior vice-president of sales and marketing, could barely contain his glee. "I'm happy—no, I'm proud—no, I'm happy and proud to announce that Mary Cardas is NHT's North American sales manager."

On August 21, Directed Electronics, Inc. announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Polk Audio for $136 million in cash, with the deal to close in Q3 of 2006. Current Polk management will join Directed, and company founder Matthew Polk and Polk president Jim Herd will sit on Directed's home audio advisory board. File this one under the you can't make this stuff up department: Sandy Gross, founder of Directed's other loudspeaker company, Definitive Technology, already sits on the board, which makes Polk's presence there a homecoming of sorts, since Gross was a founding partner at Polk.

On August 15, Klipsch Group, Inc. announced the acquisition of Canadian firm Audio Products International Corp. (API), one of the largest speaker manufacturers in the world. API, which makes loudspeakers under the Mirage, Energy, Spherez, Sound Dynamics, and Athena Technologies brands, was founded in 1973 and is sold in over 50 countries worldwide. Klipsch, which makes speakers under the Klipsch marque as well as Jamo, was founded in 1946 by legendary speaker designer Paul W. Klipsch and has become "the largest stand-alone speaker manufacturer in the US."

Audia Flight: Musical">http://www.musicalsounds.us/">Musical Sounds will be distributing the Italian electronics manufacturer Audia">http://www.audia.it/">Audia Flight's line of components in North America. Audia Flight manufactures the CD One CD player, Flight 100 and Flight 50 power amplifiers, Flight ONE integrated amplifier, Flight PRE preamplifier, and Flight 3.100 multichannel amplifier. (North American prices TBA)

Dean Roumanis, chief operating officer and part owner of Krell Industries, died Sunday, July 30, of a heart attack, one day after being taken to the hospital following chest pains he experienced after a long bicycle ride. He was 52.

No CDs for you, Tower: The Los Angeles Times reportedhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tower4aug04,0,736949.story?coll=l…; August 4 that Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and EMI have cut off CD shipments to Tower Records because the record chain has stopped paying its bills. Sony BMG may have also stopped shipping to Tower, but the Times was not able to confirm those reports.