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It's funny how things sometimes have to hit you in the head before you actually notice them. When Jon Iverson and I were cruising CES 2007 in January, we were stopped in our tracks by Sooloos's">http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2007/107soolooscdslot/">Sooloos's media server technology. Sooloos got the whole no-compromise audiophile approach, but what really knocked us out was how thoroughly it utilized the metadata from AMG (All Media Guide): Feed the the Sooloos server a disc and it would access AMG's database and collect artist name, album title, track names, cover art, genre, mood, side-man information, and even "associated concepts."

Carson City, NV loudspeaker company Wisdom Audio has been aggressively reorganizing itself lately. The first part of the program was re-uniting founder Tom Bohlender with erstwhile partner David Graebner to refine and perfect the magnetic planar speaker technology used by Wisdom's hybrid planar/dynamic loudspeakers. Then, in October 2006, the company appointed industry veteran Mark Glazier presidenthttp://stereophile.com/news/100906glazier/">president;. On February 8, Glazier announced that Jon Herron would join the company as vice president of sales.

We wrote last week about the increasingly">http://www.stereophile.com/news/021207drm/">increasingly heated debate over DRM copy protection, with everybody from Steve Jobs to the RIAA weighing in on the subject. This week was just as wild and whacky on that front.

Recordings that deliver the benefits of the high-resolution SACD format scored big at the 49^th Grammy Awards Ceremony, held February 11, 2007 in Los Angeles. Telarc, which issues virtually all its classical titles and some jazz/blues releases in both DSD-native CD and hybrid SACD surround formats, won two Grammys in classical categories and three in jazz. SFS Media, the in-house label of the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, received two Grammys for the seventh release in its ongoing Mahler series of live, DSD-native hybrid surround SACDs. Last but not least, Harmonia Mundi, some of whose titles are available in DSD-native hybrid surround SACD, scored big with the gorgeous choral music of Arvo Pärt.

Many people remember the 1990 Milli Vanilli scandal, in which Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan were stripped of their Best New Artist Grammy award when it was revealed they hadn't actually performed on the disc. Of course, "borrowing" has long been a part of the pop music world, as George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," and almost any sampled recording can attest; however, most listeners have probably assumed things are a lot more straightforward in the world of classical performance and recording.

An essay with the unassuming title of "Thoughts">http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">"Thoughts on Music" has certainly caused a furor over the last week. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was written by Apple's Steve Jobs or that he stated absolutely that digital rights management copy restriction systems "haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."

We reported in 2005 on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) lawsuit">http://www.stereophile.com/news/082205riaa/">lawsuit against Patricia Santangelo and her suit in response to the trade group's allegations that she had participated in peer-to-peer file sharing. The record companies dropped their legal actions against Ms. Santangelo in December 2006, instead deciding to charge two of her children, Robert (16) and Michelle (20), with downloading songs from Kazaa.