Yet the tone on the floor was subdued, as if computer-peripheral IC manufacturers had concluded they could not compete with Microsoft, which was promoting Universal Plug-and-Play, home networking and a "Consumer Operating System."

It was a good environment for audio. VLSI Technology demonstrated PCI boards using its ThunderBird audio accelerator. The part implements a 3-D audio algorithm developed by QSound Labs that allows a listener the widest possible "sweet spot." The device also implements a QSound multi-speaker system algorithm that converts stereo channels to quad.

Texas Instruments showed "Digital Speakers," a sense of what would happen if an equalizer D/A converter-a low-end DSP controller-were inserted in the sound-processing chain from USB PC output to the power amp in the speaker house. TI marketing manager Jay Srage argued that simple digital electronics could overcome deficiencies in otherwise inexpensively made speaker systems.

To demonstrate, he did an A-B switch comparison between an unequalized (supposedly "flat") amplifier-speaker combo and one equalized with the TI part (and a Windows PC-based control console). The effects of the equalization were not particularly dramatic on the lone voice and viol on the Sequentia Hildegard CD (though it did bring tears to the eyes of a Texas engineer who apparently had never heard this stuff before). But on the jumpy, percussive Madonna dance music, the A-B switch made the entire sound stage collapse-explode. Never mind "sweet spot"; the difference could be heard clear across the room.