Digital music renaissance [Profiles]

Neil Young has called the digital recording era the "dark ages" of music. Bob Dylan, in a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, called music from CDs "static" and "small." Just a couple of grumpy old rockers who can\´t get with the program-or visionaries who see that the times, they are a-changin\´? A retired engineer\´s basement in Lexington, Mass., is the unlikely wellspring for some technology that could hold the answer. Richard Burwen, designer of everything from stereo sound chips to the Pioneer spacecraft\´s magnetometers, has spent nearly 50 years building and tweaking his own 20 000-watt ultrahigh-end hi-fi system. And some of the tricks and algorithms he\´s developed could someday make your CDs and digital music files sound better than you ever thought they could.