LATEST ADDITIONS

T<I>he Road to the Awards: Seven Outstanding Nominated Shorts from the 72nd Academy Awards. Various stars & directors. 126 minutes. 1999. Atom Films. NR. $24.99.</I>

Personal video recorder pioneer <A HREF="http://www.replayTV.com/">ReplayTV</A> has decided to abandon the product category it co-created last year with competitor <A HREF="http://www.tivo.com/">TiVo, Inc</A>. The Mountain View, California-based company will concentrate instead on licensing its technology to cable providers and hardware maanufaturers for inclusion in a new generation of set-top boxes.

Ever since the days of David and Goliath, the world has rooted for the little guy. In the underdog we invest our imagination and our collective hope: we want him to win&mdash;or at least put up a good fight. And every once in a while, the little dog gets to choose weapons that can skew the results in his favor. Such is the case with the newest entry in the residential CRT market, the Theater Automation Wow HD-800 CRT projector.

There was a time when playing with audio was a lot of fun. I was a pretty tweaky guy and would regularly try out all of the latest tweaks and accessories. Then, about seven or eight years ago, I kind of burned out. I had gone to visit the home of a fellow audiophile who was so obsessed with adjusting and fiddling with things that listening to music had taken a back seat. Rather than see myself following the same path, I decided to go on kind of an antitweak rant. Sure, careful setup remains important, but enjoying music has become even more so. Consequently, when a manufacturer approaches me with some new device made from Unobtainium that's supposed to make my life better for a mere $299, I tend to get defensive. This, however, was not my reaction when I first saw the PS Audio P300 Power Plant because most of its design approach followed what I had for years thought would be a great way to deal with the crappy AC power most utilities deliver.