Have you ever been to a rock concert and come away mumbling, "Those engineers must be deaf"? After enduring three hours of an all-out sonic assault, you were probably just a tad cranky, but the facts are that those engineers probably <I>were</I> deaf, or well on their way.
It's safe to say that few audio engineers are more famous than Ray Dolby. On May 1, the founder and chairman of <A HREF="http:// www.dolby.com">Dolby Laboratories</A> was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, joining such luminaries as Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph.
Last week, Primedia announced the next in a series of editorial upgrades to its Home Technology & Photography specialty group. The group is redesigning its <I>Stereophile Guide to Home Theater</I> magazine to become <I>Stereophile Ultimate AV</I> (new URL: <A HREF="http://www.ultimateavmag.com">www.ultimateavmag.com</A>) starting with the June 2004 issue. Hitting newsstands May 11, the redesigned magazine will feature 16 pages of new and expanded editorial content for high-end audio/video enthusiasts, more advertisers, and an enhanced consumer-friendly design.
These days, an increasing number of new automobiles are emphasing a custom audio system as a selling feature
Meeting Englishman Tim de Paravicini for the first time, you start to wonder if your mind has slipped a gear, whether premature brain fade has cut in. The conversation seems not only to be racing by unexpectedly quickly, but also subjects you hadn't even realized <I>were</I> subjects are being examined in knowledgeable depth. It was at the end of the 1970s that I bumped into Tim at a trade show in the UK; having wanted to ask his opinion of tube-amp design, knowing that the gangling, wispy-bearded, Nigeria-born, one-time resident of South Africa and Japan, ex-Lux engineer (footnote 1) had cast a magic wand over the Michaelson & Austin product line, I found myself instead being treated to an exposition of color phosphor problems in TV monitors. For Tim is a true polymath, his mind seemingly capable of running at high speed along several sets of tracks simultaneously.
The story of New Acoustic Dimensions, aka NAD, begins in the late 1970s. The company was founded as a dealer distribution collective to design and market reasonably priced serious high-end gear to cost-constrained audiophiles. By eliminating needless features and focusing manufacturing in low-cost production facilities, NAD has successfully delivered audiophile-quality gear for 20 years at prices little more expensive than mass-market department-store schlock.
Looked at from one viewpoint, DVD-Audio and SACD appear to be exercises in sheer profligacy. In the case of DVD-A, why provide a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/282">maximum bandwidth</A> almost five times what is conventionally taken to be the audible frequency range, and couple it to a dynamic-range capability far in excess of that achievable by the microphones used to record the sound? In the case of SACD, why provide a potential bandwidth in excess of 1.4MHz, only to fill more than 95% of it with <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/374">quantization noise</A>?
We were startled to receive an email announcement recently informing us that Scot Markwell, long-time set-up and equipment maven for <I>The Abso!ute Sound</I>'s erstwhile editor Harry Pearson, had joined the staff at <A HREF="http://www.themusic.com">www.themusic.com</A> to manage its Gear Shop division.
The Home Entertainment 2004 Show (HE2004) is coming to NYC May 20–23, 2004 at the Hilton New York Hotel & Towers. HE2004 is open to the public—consumers will not only have the opportunity to see, hear, and demo the finest high-performance products consumer electronics has to offer, they can also attend a dozen free educational seminars on a variety of topics and enjoy live music daily from jazz and blues artists during relaxing breaks for lunch. The educational seminars and music luncheons will be offered all three days of the Show. Seminars will be moderated by some of the consumer electronics industry's most respected editors, manufacturers, and custom-installation professionals.
Paul Bolin revisits planet Halcro to review the company's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/404halcro">dm10 preamplifier</A>. As PB notes, "After designing an amplifier that turned much of the audio world on its head, Halcro's head honcho, Bruce Candy, turned his attention to developing a preamplifier to match what he'd already wrought."