LATEST ADDITIONS

I had planned to feature a few intriguing new products I saw at CEDIA's Expo 2007 held last September in Denver, but I did that on the <I>Stereophile</I> <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/cedia2007">website</A&gt;. Instead, I'll just tell you about the only big audio trend I saw there: HDMI.

Jaki Byard’s <I>Sunshine of My Soul</I> (High Note) has come to my attention a bit late, otherwise it would have made my Top 10 list at the end of last year. Yet another long-lost concert-tape dug out of the vaults, it takes us to San Francisco’s Keystone Korner in June 1978, where Byard is flying barrel-rolls solo. Byard—who died in 1999 at 77, gunned down on his doorstep for still-unknown reasons—was a pianist both virtuosic and rowdy. His left hand is rock-solid, his right hand fleet with fury. Imagine Willie “The Lion” Smith pressure-cooked by Mingus (Byard played in Mingus’ band through most of the ‘60s), and you get some idea. He was a teacher to Jason Moran and Fred Hersch, two of today’s most versatile jazz pianists, and you can hear much of his influence in their work as well, especially Moran when he cruises through stride licks.

Longtime <I>Stereophile</I> reader (and EFF senior staff attorney) Fred von Lohmann sent us a message pointing us to rumors that iPod Classics running v1.1 firmware were outputting DC through both their dock connection and headphone jack. He included a <A REF="http://ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipod-classic-11-line-out-vol…; to iLounge.com, which bills itself as "an independent provider of information about Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and iPhone digital media players, accessories, and related software."

When last we heard business news from NHT, it had been <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/051506nht/">acquired by Vinci Labs</A> in 2006. Today, NHT managing director Chris Byrne told <I>Stereophile</I>, "We are sitting down right now and signing the papers to purchase NHT, Inc. from Vinci Labs, creating NHT Audio, LLC."

"We've tried making it more powerful. When I was away on holiday, some of our people cooked up a more powerful version and presented it to me on my return. It sounded awful."

The Melbourne Symphony plays music on VB bottles. My kind of musc.
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