Only a few days remain until Christmas. Trees, tinsel, twinkling lights, and . . . tunes. It's the audiofool's most dreaded time of the year, when he once again suffers through his nine-thousandth experience of Bing Crosby crooning "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Sheer torture.
In the January '98 <i>Stereophile</i>, Michael Zeugin of Audio Influx asserts that high-end audio is being sucked into a "Black Hole" for a variety of reasons. These include: goofy products, computers taking over the youth market, and boomers' limited income being channeled elsewhere. What do you think?
R<i>olling Stone</i> is going head-to-head with MTV. Last week, Wenner Media, Inc, announced a partnership with JamTV to create a music site on the Web. Wenner is the parent company of <i>Rolling Stone</i> magazine. JamTV is an eight-month-old Internet start-up that broadcasts live concerts.
More high-end audio company musical chairs: Howard Schilling, co-founder and Vice President of Sales and Marketing of <A HREF="http://www.camelot-tech.com">Camelot Technology</A>, will now also join <A HREF="http://www.gen-tech.com">Genesis Technologies</A> as National Sales Manager after having "quietly" worked with them in the past.
UK electronics specialty manufacturer Audiolab has been taken over by leading Grand Prix car-racing company TAG McLaren---or, more precisely, by the TAG McLaren Group. A newly formed company, TAG Electronics Holdings Ltd., will be the parent of both Cambridge Systems Technology Ltd. (which trades as Audiolab) and TAG Electronic Systems Ltd. (which supplies specialist, low-volume electronic engine-management systems to exclusive high-end automobile brands).
You'd be hard-pressed to find a company more protective of its reputation than Krell. At a recent meeting of the Academy for the Advancement for High End Audio and Video, a motion was made to replace the phrase "High End" with the more purely descriptive "High Performance." Krell's CEO, Dan D'Agostino, objected—while he knew the description fit <I>his</I> products, he wasn't sure about those from some of the other members.
It's been a tough couple of years for those who like to make digital copies of audio recordings. What started with SCMS copy-restriction schemes in DAT machines has quickly spilled over into current digital formats such as those proposed for DVD-Audio. But a glimmer of hope has shone through the haze.
Don Bouchard of Cello forwarded this e-mail to us, which outlines the new CE labeling requirements. These are so draconian that we felt the high-end audio community needs to be made aware of them!
In just a few years, Sonic Frontiers has evolved from a parts and kit vendor to a full-line audio manufacturer (footnote 1). Their initial offerings were well received, but their kit origins were apparent in the layout and cosmetics of their products. While SF still offers kits (like their high-value Assemblage DAC-2), the new line of vacuum-tube electronics has world-class construction, design, and packaging. This generation of SF equipment is evidence of their advanced evolution, even though their constructor genome can be detected in the use of audiophile-preferred, as opposed of OEM, components.
Bits <I>vs</I> atoms! The new frontier of audio distribution is said to include downloading recordings over the internet onto a CD or DVD recorder for a modest fee. We'll assume for the moment that bandwidth has improved to the point where this is not a painful process, and data compression is not needed. But the question remains: Are you a collector who wants the original disc, or do you just want the music fast and cheap?