New Companies Formed
Two new companies have formed in recent weeks to bring audiophile cable and connector products to market.
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Better Sound Through DSP?
Back in January of 2002, we <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11252/index.html">reported</A> that loudspeaker manufacturer <A HREF="http://www.nhthifi.com">NHT</A> and <A HREF="http://www.deqx.com/">DEQX</A> (then known as ClarityEQ) had begun to co-develop a new line of active loudspeakers using DEQX's custom digital <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10969/index.html">room correction technology</A>. It's two years later, and NHT says it is finally ready to unveil the first speaker system incorporating digital signal processing (DSP) developed during the alliance.
Monster Cable Sigma Retro Gold speaker cables & interconnects
I've been in a nostalgic funk of late. What started it was visiting Golden, Colorado, where I spent my graduate-school days, and seeing all of the changes, not to mention the lecture halls full of kids who couldn't be a day over 12. When I commented on how young the freshmen looked, our host—a colleague of mine from grad school, now a professor—responded, "Those are seniors, Brian." I felt a little old.
Theta Digital Generation VIII D/A converter
We audiophiles are ever hopeful that, however satisfying our present equipment and setup, we can achieve even greater enjoyment with a tweak or an upgrade. And we never stop: It was only 16 years (and three turntables) ago that I bought what I declared would be my last turntable, and there's no doubt that this "dead" format has improved substantially since then. Now, even as we make another (but less paradigm-shifting) format transition, from CD to SACD and DVD-Audio, new two-channel DACs continue to appear that show us how far we still are from wresting all the music from the original "Red Book" 16-bit CD format. I reviewed the wonderful <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/781">Weiss Medea DAC</A> in February 2003, and there are still on my auditioning rack are two more Swiss DACs that might redefine the category: the Orpheus 1 and the Nagra DAP.
Cary CAD-280SA V12 power amplifier
According to Cary Audio designer <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/399">Dennis Had</A> in this amplifier's documentation, "Countless hours were spent designing and voicing the CAD-280SA V12 stereo amplifier...It delivers high performance in a combination of class-A single-ended triode and true balanced push-pull technology."
Cary SLP-98P tube preamplifier
I had it all wrong. I assumed that the "SLP" in SLP-98P stood for <I>stereo line preamplifier</I>. But <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/399">Dennis Had</A>, Cary Audio's founder and chief designer, told me that it actually stands for <I>sweet little preamplifier</I>. In a day and age when <I>acme</I> is a word without meaning and the fighting Irish are neither, this strikes me as a risky marketing gambit—but one that may be effective if the name proves true.
Have you hooked up your computer to play music through your audio system? If yes, tell us how you did it.
Computers are becoming an ever-increasing source of music for many listeners. Have you tried connecting your computer to your audio system? If you have, how did you do it?
Satellite Radio Subs Jump
Now is clearly crunch time for satellite radio. In the last year alone, over one million new subscribers have been added to front-runner <A HREF="http://www.xmradio.com">XM Satellite Radio</A>'s service, bringing its total to approximately 1.4 million. The company projects that it will reach a total of 2.4 million subscribers by the end of 2004, thus ensuring its survival.
Added to the Archives This Week
This week we have two John Atkinson speaker reviews from the February 2004 issue. First, JA gets his hands on the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/204bw">B&W 705 loudspeaker</A>, commenting, "When I heard about the company's new 700 series of speakers, based on the technology featured in their cost-no-object Nautilus series but priced to sell in the real world, I asked to review the $1500/pair 705."
UK Music Sales Rise
Contrary to popular assumption, music downloads and CD sales may reinforce each other. That's one reasonable interpretation of mid-February music industry statistics from the United Kingdom.