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Record industry policy, when it comes to digital downloads, has always been to give the consumers what it wants them to have: files that may, but probably won't, work in all of their purchasers' devices.

The music industry's reaction to a prolonged sales slump has been a desperate effort to create legislative and technological deterrents to force consumers to stop downloading MP3s and copying CDs.

It's no secret that the music industry has added watermarking to its arsenal in an effort to restrict how audio content is used. With SACD, DVD-Audio, and now">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11604/">now CD, audio watermarking has been used mainly for digitally stored content. But the music business also has problems with live concert bootlegs as well as bootlegs surfacing after special broadcast events.

Bose Corporation announced today the acquisition of McIntosh Group, the parent company of high-end audio brands McIntosh and Sonus faber. The move aims to broaden Bose's offerings into the high-performance and luxury audio markets.

If it's the software that sells a new format, then several recent announcements bode well for both SACD and DVD-Audio. Last week, DTS announced plans to begin shipment of the first DVD-Audio music recordings produced by its company-owned DTS">http://www.dtsonline.com">DTS Entertainment record label by late February 2001. Also, the first multichannel SACD to be produced by a major label from an original multitrack master, Mike Oldfield's recently remastered 1971 classic Tubular Bells is due for release from Virgin Records in February 2001.

"Our production line was stepping on its own toes," said Boulder Amplifiers' Rich Maez, Director of Sales and Marketing, as he welcomed me into the company's new, massive 23,000 sq. ft. manufacturing and testing plant in Louisville, CO. The move to a huge, brand-new building on 3 acres of land outside Boulder, in an area devoted to light industry, was greeted with sighs of relief by a team that had formerly found itself squeezed into an increasingly over-packed 10,000 sq. ft. facility.

Ola Björling speaks with Kenzo Horiuchi of Boulder at High End Vienna 2026 about his company's new 800 series amplifiers, which include the 808 phono preamplifier and 851 monoblock power amplifier.