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A happy 35,000-foot-high encounter with Jim Thompson and John Callery of EgglestonWorks led to the unveiling of the new Oso loudspeaker ($12,895/pair). Mated with the belated show premiere of the same Doshi Evolution monoblocks ($44,000/pair, below) that graced the cover of our May 2021 issue, as well as an Innuos Statement music server and J. Sikora turntable ($21,000 without arms—see Michael Fremer's review in the forthcoming July issue), the speakers produced lovely sound.

Thirteen months after announcing its returnhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10593/">return; to manufacturing, Memphis-based speaker maker EgglestonWorkshttp://www.egglestonworks.com/">EgglestonWorks; is back in a big way, with plans to debut a "radical" and "visually provocative" reference loudspeaker at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Several class-action">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10750/">class-action lawsuits have been thrown against the music industry in the wake of its admission that it engaged in a price-fixing scheme known as Minimum Advertised Pricing, or MAP. The policy arose as a response to widespread CD price wars in the early 1990s that drove prices of some CDs below $10 each, and was intended to prevent mass-market merchandisers from offering CDs below cost as lures to pull customers into stores. The MAP policy was officially discontinued after the Federal Trade Commission reached">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10744/">reached a settlement with the industry in May of this year.

Upstart digital audio format MP3 received some heavy-duty validation with the announcement on Wednesday, April 27 by Thomson Multimedia SA that it has made a 20% investment in MusicMatch">http://www.musicmatch.com/">MusicMatch Inc., a maker of MP3 player and management software. "Jukebox," as the software is known, is used to play, encode, and manage MP3 files. Thomson makes RCA, ProScan, and Thomson brand electronics.

It's widely acknowledged that the American economy is in a downturn, but some economic indicators point otherwise.

Listening to and evaluating audio products in the CES trade-show environment is usually an utterly useless exercise. But every once in a while, a demonstration will clearly prove an exhibitor's point. PS Audio was able to do this with a convincing introduction to their Power Plant a couple of years back, as was Ray Kimber with his DiAural technology. This year, the "proof of concept in a hotel room" award would likely go to a new Australian upstart, ClarityEQ.

One of the great sopranos of the 20th century, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, died in her sleep at her home in Schruns, Austria, on August 3, at the age of 90. The myriad ways in which she employed her remarkably expressive, silvery soprano gave rise to as much admiration and respect as her penchant for incessant nuance, along with her Nazi past, generated controversy.