On June 17, <A HREF="http://www.carltonplc.co.uk/">Carlton Communications</A>, owner of Technicolor, announced that it has entered into a merger agreement to acquire <A HREF="http://www.nimbuscd.com/">Nimbus CD International</A>, one of the world's largest independent manufacturers of optical discs, including CD-Audio, DVD, DVD-ROM, and CD-ROM.
The "world's largest bookstore" may be on its way to becoming one of the biggest music stores, too. Two weeks ago, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com">Amazon.com</A> began a big push into CD retailing, more than doubling the number of its musical offerings to over 100,000 titles. (Competitor <A HREF="http://www.cdnow.com">CDnow</A> offers over 500,000 titles.) Visitors to the Amazon website can now click on a tab that will take them to a new music site, where they can listen to audio previews and read reviews, reprints of articles on bands and musicians, and music-industry news.
With the plethora of CD and DVD formats out there, it can be confusing figuring out what will work with what. Standards can help define specifications for a particular format, but often do little to guarantee compatibility between them.
<B>The Sessions: Wes Phillips</B>
With the single-ended triode resurgence of recent years causing much debate about tubes vs. transistors, what has been your experience?
From the Show:
From the Show:
Audiophiles with budget restrictions (most of us, I imagine) could be forgiven for feeling we're afterthoughts to most manufacturers. Even though we probably keep many companies in business by buying their "entry-" or mid-level products, we're always hearing about products designed "without compromise." <I>Waiter, could you bring the reality check, please?</I>
On Wednesday evening, June 10, <A HREF="http://www.avacademy.com">The Academy Advancing High Performance Audio & Video</A> held its 1998 Golden Note Awards at the Marina Del Rey Ritz-Carlton. Following an address by John Hoskins of the Advantage Performance Group, a sales consulting firm, the amiable awards ceremony was MC'd by Paradigm's own stand-up comedian, Rob Sample. AAHPAV's ceaselessly energetic Chairperson Sue Regan assisted in the presentations, as did Academy President Joe Picirilli. And the hard-working winners (drum roll, please) are . . .
With the proposed DVD-Audio format comes the opportunity for multiple channels of high-quality sound. But would you even consider adding more speakers to your two-channel system?