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Cirrus Launches Low-Cost A/D Converters

Cirrus">http://www.cirrus.com">Cirrus Logic Inc. has introduced two new high-performance analog-to-digital converters. The CS5361 and CS5351 are said to deliver professional sound quality for audio/video receivers (AVRs) and DVD recorders (DVD-Rs) at mainstream consumer prices. The new chips are OEM-priced at $4.95 and $3.95 respectively, in quantities of 10,000 or more.

Added to the Archives This Week

John Atkinson heads across America's great plains toward Kansas to engineer a brand-new recording that he and Les Berkley document in A">http://www.stereophile.com//features/575/">A Mosaic of Music: Stereophile's Clarinet Quintet CD. For the new CD, JA returns again to Chad Kassem's audio Mecca, noting that "105 takes of the Mozart and 102 takes of the Brahms later, we had gotten everything down on tape in two days of intense music-making."

Vivendi to Pay A&M Founders

For Vivendi">http://www.vivendi.com">Vivendi Universal SA, when it rains, it pours. Just two weeks after chief executive Jean-Marie Messier ousted Pierre Lescure, the president of France's Canal">http://www.canalplus.fr">Canal Plus television company—an event that caused demonstrations in the streets of Paris and paroxysms of nationalistic fervor among France's 18 presidential candidates—a complicated stock deal got vastly more complicated, resulting in a $250 million payment due to A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.

HitClips Are Hot

Where Pogs and Pokemon once ruled, HitClipshttp://www.tigertoys.com/newhitclips/">HitClips; have taken over. HitClips are hot. So hot, in fact, that Hasbro">http://www.hasbro.com">Hasbro Incorporated's Tiger Electronics division has sold more than 20 million of them at $3.99 each. That's $80 million gross on a single product, a figure that probably no high-end audio company has ever reached.

Stuck in the Seventies

Last week's online">http://www.stereophile.com/vote.shtml">online poll indicates that many Stereophile readers have an ongoing affinity for the retro design style of older audio gear. Several respondents say they find the warm glow of tubes and backlit displays seductively attractive in a darkened room, while others pine for the days of analog dials and softly lit meters with gently bouncing needles.

RIAA Wants Federal Anti-Piracy Funds

The Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has requested increased federal funding for the ongoing struggle against the pirating of recorded music. On Tuesday, April 23, the organization's executives asked the US House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee for more money to pursue pirates. Such allocations come directly from tax revenues, according to reports from Washington.

Financial Roundup

By several common measures, the American economy appears to be emerging from its first recession in a decade. On Friday, April 26, the US Commerce Department reported economic growth of 5.8% (annual rate) for the first quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP), generally considered the broadest indicator of the economy's health, was the strongest since the final quarter of 1999. The 5.8% rate is especially encouraging in view of the 1.7% rate during the fourth quarter of 2001. The US Labor Department also reported a decline in first-time applications for unemployment benefits during the last week of April.

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