Audiophiles have a mess on their hands. In a somewhat surreal press conference in May, a half dozen audio luminaries—representing Sony, Philips, and several titans of the high-end recording business—stood on a HI-FI '99 stage looking awkwardly at the audience.
"Do you have another DVD player?" asked Classic Records' Michael Hobson. As is usual in important demonstrations, Murphy's Law had struck with a vengeance. The prototype Muse DVD player Kevin Halverson had worked on most of the previous night was refusing to play the DVD Mike had placed in its tray.
As you can read in this month's "Industry Update" (pp.35 & 37), the two conglomerates who hitherto seemed driven to offer the world <I>two</I> competing standards for the forthcoming Digital Video Disc came to their senses. Instead of consumers being offered Toshiba/Warner/Matsushita's SD <I>and</I> Sony/Philips's MCD, there will be just one high-density 4.75" disc to take both video and audio data storage into the 21st century.
Tweeter's new look: Tweeter Home Entertainment Group is entering the first phase of a massive makeover—with redesigned stores and a new marketing approach emphasizing custom installation and media-server–based home-theater products. The company will de-emphasize individual components and pitch its services toward women, who make most decisions about home entertainment and home décor. The company's pitch will be "We can untangle your mind," a reference to the widespread frustration with semi-compatible and often incomprehensible technologies. Over the next 18 months, Tweeter will consolidate its various regional chains under a single brand name, with a prototype 14,500 sq. ft. store in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, NV to be launched at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
One of the most enduring obstacles confronting audio engineers has been how to generate powerful low bass without the need for large loudspeaker enclosures. It's been generally accepted that really effective low bass means moving large quantities of air, which in turn means large drivers in large cabinets. Large loudspeakers, unfortunately, don't meet the approval of many dcor-conscious homeowners. It's a longstanding problem for music lovers, home theater fans, and custom installers.
<I>"The idea that intellectual property in a Net-based economy can lose its value horrifies most owners and creators. They'd better get over it."—Esther Dyson, "Intellectual Value" </I>Wired<I>, July 1995, p.136</I>
There has always been something uniquely satisfying about holding a paper magazine in your hand and riffling through its pages. Images and textures are of higher resolution than any video screen, and the ease of use of the paper-page bundle can not easily be replaced. People are developing electronic substitutes for paper, but the interesting thing is that these researchers are endeavoring to imitate the look, feel, and functionality of paper—but with digital inks and charged surfaces. For now, plain old paper and ink are just too perfect a medium to toss when it comes to packing information into a compact, portable, high-quality package.
For months now, I've been beating the drum for full-range center-channel speakers, to reproduce recordings with a true center-channel signal. There are many reasons for this.
When I was a boy, silent dog whistles were all the rage. They were sold mail-order from the backs of comic books, alongside whoopee cushions and sneeze powder and X-ray spex. The whistles aren't so easy to find anymore, but don't read too much into that fact. Don't read into that at all.
Audiophiles cringe at the idea of downloading blurry, compressed representations of once-detailed recordings (even CD seems high-rez these days). But that hasn't stopped average music fans from trying online music services.