News

A year without profits, a revolving door on the top floor, and potentially massive layoffs all spell trouble for BMG Entertainment.

Last week, Asahi Kasei Microsystems Semiconductor (AKM), which supplies audio ICs for professional and consumer products, announced its line of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) Digital-to-Analog converters capable of supporting both Super Audio CD (SACD) Direct-Stream Bigital and 24-bit/192kHz LPCM DVD-Audio formats.

As John Atkinson puts it, Meridian usually does things "their way," putting amps and DACs inside of speakers in an all-out attempt at "re-creating the original soundfield, no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right." But as Atkinson finds, the Meridian 518 Digital Audio Processor might be the company's most perverse product: "The $1650 518 offers digital inputs and outputs only. It can digitally perform gain and source selection; it can change data with one digital word length to data with another; and it does all these things with 72-bit internal precision." So JA asks, "How does the 518 fit within a conventional high-end audio system?" Read along as he figures it all out.

Chet Atkins, the good-natured guitarist and successful record producer who established Nashville as the capitol of country music, in the process of transforming the music itself, died on Saturday, June 30. He had battled cancer for several years. He was 77.

The compact disc has given rise to all sorts of questionable accessories: magic pens with green ink, reflective stickers, rim dampers, absorbent mats, spindle weights, cleaners, buffers, polishers, and demagnetizers. It's amazing how many products are needed to make perfect sound perfect.

The fate of Tower Records has been the subject of music industry speculation for months. The company's financial difficulties have been no secret; several stories recently appeared alluding to a new Tower policy of making some suppliers share the burden—especially distributors of small specialty classical labels.

As Michael Fremer reports, critics have universally hailed Infinity's $8k flagship Prelude MTS. But can the success of the MTS trickle down to the lower price points? For his review of the $2000/pr Infinity Intermezzo 2.6 loudspeaker, Fremer set out to determine if the more modest sibling is a "worthwhile chip off the old block or just a marketing divot."