It has been another tough week for the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.org">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) as it continues to grapple with a waning CD market, and attempts to further rein in the forces of a brave new digital audio world. It didn't help that its website was heckled until it went offline, either.
The complete set of 22 Rolling Stones recordings from the ABKCO label are set to be released as SACD/CD hybrid discs over the next few weeks. Will this give SACD a boost in the marketplace?
"I wouldn't characterize my life as 'a search for bigger and better toys,' but I <I>am</I> intrigued by interesting things—like the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/648/">Impact Airfoil 5.2 loudspeaker system</A>," says Brian Damkroger as he steels himself for another review. BD goes in search of an answer to the Airfoil dilemma: "big toy, new toy, neat toy, better toy?"
Traditional music radio has been taking a beating since the mid '80s, when declining audience numbers entered a ratings freefall. Reader Bard-Alan Finlan argued in his <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showsoap.cgi?276">Soapbox</A> a few weeks back that perhaps digital radio could cure the market's over-the-air terrestrial broadcast ills, if only it were implemented with adequate bandwidth and marketed correctly.
<A HREF="http://www.sharp-usa.com">Sharp Electronics</A> has come a long way from the household appliances and modest home entertainment products it has long been famous for. (The company's name derives from its first product, a retracting pencil.) Sharp is making a serious, prolonged push into upscale audio and video, as evidenced by the array of new models on display at a dealer and media conference held in late August at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, a hotel/golf resort north of San Diego.
It will probably be years before we can determine the actual effects that Napster and other online file-trading networks have had on the music business. Conflicting evidence suggests that swapping music either <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11418/">increases</A> or <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11387/">reduces</A> CD sales.
All of us at <I>Stereophile</I> were saddened to learn of the death of mastering engineer Denny Purcell, whose body was found Thursday, August 22 in the offices of his Georgetown Masters studio in Nashville. He was 51.
Less than a week after launching major copyright-infringement <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11422/">litigation</A> against several large Internet service providers (ISPs), member companies of the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) abruptly withdrew their lawsuit because an offending offshore music site had even more abruptly gone dark.
<I>The fundamental object of the invention is to provide...the listener a realistic impression that the intelligence is being communicated to him over two acoustic paths in the same manner as he experiences in listening to everyday acoustic intercourse....</I>—Blumlein, <I>et al</I>, British Patent #394,325, issued June 14, 1933</B>
Industry representatives for both SACD and DVD-Audio claim they are not in a format war with each other. Do you disagree with them?