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Home Entertainment 2001 (formerly The HI-FI Show) is heading back to the heart of New York for the first time in five years. Described as "a unique hands-on event where attendees will see and hear the newest and the best in home audio and home theater," HE 2001 will take place May 11–13 at the Hilton New York.

An improved digital-audio compression standard has been adopted by the Bertelsmann">http://www.bmg.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and the Universal">http://www.umusic.com/">Universal Music Group for commercial music downloads. "Advanced Audio Coding" (AAC) is said to offer higher audio quality while occupying 30% less bandwidth and storage space than the popular MP3 format, according to an announcement from San Francisco–based Dolby">http://www.dolby.com/">Dolby Laboratories.

Music lovers who availed themselves of MP3.com's">http://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com's uploading-archiving-and-accessing services are about to become the next target market for the music industry. Nearing the end of protracted litigation brought against it by the music industry's "Big Five," the online music venture has announced a marketing service that will promote new commercial recordings directly to its users through e-mails. The recordings will be on labels under the control of MP3.com's opponents in the year-long copyright wrangle.

Dynaudio US's president, Al Filippelli, tells Wes Phillips that "Dynaudio speakers are a lot like the Danes who make them. They don't look all that fancy, but they tell the truth and they get the job done. To a lot of audiophiles, that's boring. But there are a lot of people who have been looking for those qualities in a loudspeaker, and for them, boring can be cause for excitement." Phillips takes an in-depth look at the Dynaudio">http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/262/">Dynaudio Contour 3.3 loudspeaker to determine if "boring" can make him happy.

Spotting another online niche, Hifi.comhttp://www.Hifi.com">Hifi.com; announced the debut of CustomHifi.comhttp://www.CustomHifi.com">CustomHifi.com; last week. The new site is aimed at custom installers. HiFi.com claims that CustomHifi.com is the first "comprehensive national, Internet-centric marketplace to offer custom electronic design and installation professionals access to leading audio/video products, information, and installation support."

Back in 1997, DVD-Audio was still miles away—and it may still be! But, as John Atkinson writes, "After a decade of stability, with slow but steady improvement in the quality of 16-bit/44.1kHz audio, the cry among audio engineers is now '24/96!'—meaning 24-bit data sampled at 96kHz. Not coincidentally, DVD offers audiophiles a medium with the potential for playing back music encoded at this new mastering standard." The dCS">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/259/">dCS Elgar D/A processor was one of the first consumer units able to decode 24/96, and still stands as a benchmark product. JA gives the details.

Editor's Note: There is a large contingent of Stereophile readers who design and build their own equipment—the DIY (do it yourself) crowd. Hervé Delétraz from Switzerland has been e-mailing us photos and stories over the last year about his own ambitious DIY amplifier design, so we asked him if he'd be willing to share a chronicle of his progress, starting from the beginning. This is the first in a six-part series written by Mr. Delétraz.