Ken C. Pohlmann

Congratulations! Way to go! You, the consumer, picked Blu-ray Disc over HD DVD as the high-def disc format of the future. And now, instead of two formats, we have one. Like it (those with cool, futuristic Blu-ray gear) or not (those with obsolete HD DVD junk), Blu-ray is the new world standard.

Jump ahead: Features Checklist In the Lab

Audiophiles laughed when the CD was first marketed as "Perfect sound forever." They rejected the notion that digital was better than analog, or that the CD sounded better than the LP. Today, it's generally accepted that 44.1-kHz, 16-bit files (with modern improvements such as noise shaping) can challenge the ability of most listeners to detect aural format flaws.

Most people never see hard-disk drives, but their impact on our lives is becoming universal. We take them for granted, remembering how essential they are only when they occasionally fail. While CDs pretty much own the data of the audio world, hard-disk drives are providing exciting new possibilities. Take Yamaha's CDR-HD1300, for example.