Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Such is the story of the Montreal Audio Show aka Salon Son et Image (SSI), which takes place this coming weekend, March 2830. The Chester Group may be sponsoring the show for the first time, and longtime show organizer Michel Plante may have ceded the reins to his partner/wife, Sarah Tremblay, but both the location (the Hilton Bonaventure Hotel) and the show structure are pretty much the same. Tremblay expects about 80 exhibitorsthe same as last yearholding forth in 80100 rooms.
When I reviewed the Moonriver 404 Reference integrated amplifier in the February 2021 issue, I noted that the then-recent fire in the AKM factory in Japan had left the company without chips for the unit's optional DAC. A year later, that issue has been resolved.
The music industry and the file-sharing community have been waiting nervously for the impending Supreme Court decision in MGM vs Grokster, which is expected any day. At stake is not only peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, but the development of future forms of music distribution.
It wasn't too long ago that rock band Pearl Jam set their lawyers after the dozens of independent websites pre-releasing pirated versions of the band's album Yield, hoping to curtail its availability on the Internet. How times change. On June 4, any consumer with access to the Internet and a RealNetworks G2 player will have the opportunity to visit the world's "ultimate listening posts" when the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album, Californication, and Def Leppard's Euphoria, will be available in their entireties for streaming on the Web---four days prior to their official June 8 release.
This time last year the music industry was ready to celebrate. Compact disc sales were up for the first time in years, peer-to-peer file-sharing networks were reeling from lawsuits, ringtone sales were proving unexpectedly profitable, and legitimate (paid-for, that is) downloads were rising. But this year, Jim Urie, president of Universal Music Group, told The Wall Street Journal that Christmas 2005 was "a bleak holiday season at the end of a bleak year."
The record biz is in a world of hurt and doesn't mind broadcasting the news far and wide. But while the source of its woes will be debated in business schools for years to come, studies are starting to emerge that document the demographics of music buyers and their changing behaviors.
Joe Abrams has an impressive audio resume. "I've been on the manufacturer's side of the desk since 1979," he says. That's when he started as national sales manager for Monster Cable. A few years later found Abrams as director of sales at Sumiko, and then in 1987 he started as VP of sales at Threshold. In 1991 Abrams joined cable start-up Tara Labs and quickly helped them establish a dealer network before moving on to MIT.
(This article has been edited to reflect factual changes and comments from our learned colleague, Dr. Kalman Rubinson, Associate Professor at NYU's Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, who is careful to point out that he is commenting, not on the research, which he has not read, but only Heimburg's and Jackson's criticisms of current understanding and terminology—areas with which he has more than a passing acquaintance.)
Because its sound proclaims "major significance," our coverage starts with the show premiere of Graham Audio's LS5/5f loudspeaker ($24,995/pair). Unveiled in Munich, albeit only in passive display, the speaker was designed by Derek Hughes, son of the late Spencer Hughes, founder of Spendor.
Now in its fifth year, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show opens to the public this Friday, November 4, at 1pm in the Park Lane Hotel overlooking Central Park. (Friday hours are until 7pm.) The three-day show, a smaller version of what has come before, promises 30 exhibit rooms, half of which are "oversized," two ballroom-sized exhibits, and two more ballrooms filled with exhibits and vendors selling merchandise. All-in-all, the event, whose one-day visitor pass costs $30 ($26 in advance, with significant savings for multi-day passes) promises almost 110 brands.
It may be just a subway ride away from the biggest Apple, but to some inveterate Manhattanites, an audio show in Brooklyn sounds like it's from another planet. In reality, the third New York Audio Show, which opens to the public on Friday, September 26 at 2pm and continues through Sunday, September 28 at 5pm, takes place at the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, just a short distance across the East River from Manhattan.
What, another audio show? Yes, barely three weeks after the close of Salon Son et Image in Montreal, and five weeks after AXPONA Chicago, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show gets underway. Running April 1214 in the New York Palace Hotel (455 Madison Avenue at 50th Street), the show promises perhaps the largest numbers of seminars and live music events of any current audio show in the US.
When I visited NHT's manufacturing facility in early May, I was struck by a comment managing director Chris Byrne made when describing NHT's Xd loudspeaker, which employs sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP) for its crossovers and equalization functions. "You do realize that we could have never incorporated such complex slopes in a physical crossover," Byrne proselytized.
With no fewer than 42 pages of audio equipment coverage! Astell&Kern's Ultimate potable player is featured on the cover and gets a workout from Mikey Fremer on multiple road trips. On the domestic front, we have reviews of digital products from Naim, Oppo, and Benchmark, Reed's Muse 3C turntable, and amplification from Rogue and Margules, while Jim Austin lives with Devialet's groundbreaking Phantom Gold wireless speakers.
Hitting mailboxes, newsstands, and tablets today, the 204-page October Stereophile, offers 36 pages of audio equipment reports and the revised and updated "Recommended Components" listing. Featured on the cover is VPI's Prime Scout record player, reviewed by Art Dudley, who also offers auditions of speakers from Burwell and Wharfedale. Herb Reichert reviews the AMG Giro turntable, John Atkinson report on his time with KEF's Reference 5 loudspeaker, Robert Deutsch lives with PS Audio's Memory Player, and there are reviews of amplifiers from Dan D'Agostino, Rega, and Linear Tube Audio.