LATEST ADDITIONS

If there's a choice between convenience and quality, convenience usually wins out. The best example of this is the sad tale of DVD-Audio and SACD vs. MP3, all of which were introduced at roughly the same time. The convenience of quickly downloading MP3s into portable players easily trumped the vastly superior quality of DVD-A and SACD. Granted, the skirmish between the two high-res audio formats didn't help, but I suspect the outcome would have been much the same even if there had been no competition at the high end. So what's an audiophile to do?

I've heard $1,000,000 speakers. I've heard $10 speakers. But none of them can do a hundredth of what Tiger Electronics'  new Automated Music Personality ( A.M.P.) can do. Let's compare, shall we, the $500 A.M.P. with Thiel Audio's universally...

If Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) walks by, be sure to tip your hat and say "thank you!" She's the member of Congress who introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (or CALM) Act in the House of Representatives. The law, if passed, would take aim at blaring TV ads that are noticeably louder than the programming in which they appear.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/foolsgold.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Ben "Finn" Finnegan (Matthew McConaughey) is a fortune hunter whose obsession with discovering the Queen's Dowry, a treasure that mysteriously disappeared in the Caribbean in 1715, has consumed him to the point of ruining his marriage to Tess (Kate Hudson). Discovering a clue that he believes will lead him to the cache, he must charm his way into the pocketbook of billionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland) in order to finance the expedition.