LATEST ADDITIONS

I keep hearing that thin is in. While my goal of joining the slender set has always been a struggle between food and evil, I'm at least beginning to surround myself with the trappings of that lifestyle. Gone is my bulky 36-inch direct-view CRT, replaced by a Belgian-waffle-thin plasma. Now comes this quintet of speakers from the original manufacturer of thin-is-in speakers, Magnepan. This was not my first experience with planar-magnetic speakers—a long-gone pair of Maggies was my first true audiophile love. But love is no substitute for food. Could these new Maggies sustain me?

Looking for a good test DVD for Definitive Technology's BP7002 system, I settled on the swashbuckling Master and Commander. The commander, Jack Aubrey, portrayed by Russell Crowe, set sail in 1805 in this adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's historically accurate novel, but the special effects and sound quality are definitely 21st century.

For the second time, the Motion Picture Association of America (<A HREF="http://www.mpaa.org">MPAA</A>) has sued chipmakers for selling chips to makers of DVD players capable of violating industry-wide copy-protection rules.