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XM on a roll: Recent marketing efforts appear to be paying off for XM Satellite Radio. On July 2, the satellite radio startup announced that it had exceeded the 2.1-million subscriber mark during the second quarter. More than 418,000 new subscribers signed up during that period—over twice the number recruited in the same quarter last year. XM-compatible products are appearing at an ever-increasing number of retail outlets, leading some observers to believe that the company may have a fighting chance in the long run.

Audiophiles of every stripe know that achieving a realistic soundstage is maddeningly elusive—some would say impossible. When a system is right for some recordings, it's far off for others.

Would a piece of Krell electronics be the crowning jewel on your equipment rack?

We begin with a January 1993 article from Robert Harley called The">http://www.stereophile.com/reference/193jitter">The Jitter Game. RH explains, "Clock jitter is a serious and underestimated source of sonic degradation in digital audio. Only recently has jitter begun to get the attention it deserves, both by high-end designers and audio academics."

Audio retail revival: Electronics retailers throughout the US are ramping up their commitment to audio separates, according to a June 21 report by Joseph Palenchar in TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics). Palenchar describes the new emphasis on audio components as a response to declining margins on "home theater in a box" (HtiB) systems. Through April of this year, factory-to-dealer audio component sales rose 29.8% to $344.6 million, with April sales up 41.9%, hitting a four-year high of $86.9 million.

Brian Damkroger listens long and hard to the Primare">http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/604primare">Primare D30.2 CD player noting, "Primare is reluctant to provide much technical detail about their designs, preferring to let their products do the talking." So after a little chatting, BD files his report.

The US Senate has gotten serious about going after file sharers. On Friday, June 25, senators approved legislation that would allow the Justice Department to impose heavy civil penalties on people found to have shared and/or downloaded copyrighted material over the Internet.