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Is stadium rock passé? The Rolling Stones, the world's greatest practitioners of large-venue concerts, have announced a tour of smaller arenas beginning January 25. The "No Security" tour---in support of the recently released Virgin Records album of the same name---will take the band through 25 North American cities.

Long the bane of finicky audiophiles, Consumer Reports magazine has been measuring just about anything sold in a store since 1936 in an effort to "test products, inform the public, and protect consumers." But when they get around to testing audio gear, the magazine's "lab" has become the target of many audio enthusiasts who don't share CR's views on how to tell good sound from bad. In fact, part of the problem is that CR often reports that sound quality is not always the final factor in rating a product, with concerns about reliablity, ease of use, and fit and finish often skewing results.

It's well known among designers of power amplifiers that the class-A and -A/B amplifiers (referred to as linear amplifiers) used in the majority of car, home, PC, and pro audio systems are notoriously inefficient. They can consume vast amounts of power and yet waste most of it---as much as 80% or more---as heat. They require large power supplies and massive heatsinks, which drive up system weight, size, and cost. On the other hand, class-D amplifiers, using Pulse Width Modulation switching technologies, have good power efficiency but sometimes questionable audio fidelity. (The Spectron designs are possibly the exceptions here.) Class-D amps are used mostly in battery-powered applications in which sound quality might be considered secondary to battery life.

Billy Joel has decided to clean out his warehouse. Next month, the veteran rocker's almost-30-year-old collection of musical instruments, recording equipment, and stage gear will be put up for public auction by Sony">http://www.ssi.sony.com/">Sony Signatures, his merchandising company. A portion of the gross from the "Billy Joel Memorabilia Auction" will be donated to VH1's">http://www.vh1.com/">VH1's Save the Music Foundation, according to Dan Cooper, Senior Vice President of Sony Signatures' music division.

One might think that the publisher of "The Largest Marketplace in the World for Audiophile Equipment" would have a vested interest in encouraging trading activity among his readers. One would think that such a publisher might take a neutral stance regarding fluctuations in the world market for used equipment. One would think that he would credit his readers with sufficient intelligence to decide for themselves whether any specific purchase, sale, or trade was a good deal.

MP3-formatted audio files are considered to be the most popular streaming technology on the Internet, but the major record labels have so far shunned the format, which doesn't offer as much security and pay-per-download options as they'd like. Several announcements last week coincided with the WebNoizehttp://www.webnoize.com">WebNoize; conference in Los Angeles and revealed what a few of the labels are thinking.

Internet audio continues to expand. Last week, at the first WebNoize conference, held in Los Angeles, JamTV/Rolling">http://www.jamtv.com/">JamTV/Rolling Stone Network and RealNetworks">http://www.real.com/">RealNetworks, Inc. announced the debut of Rolling">http://www.rsradio.com/">Rolling Stone Radio, a new Internet audio service offering music in several genres. Rock star David Bowie announced that he would serve as a disc jockey for the new venture. Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com">Amazon.com; has also signed on to participate as a music retailer.