Audio manufacturers love to make big announcements at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (which runs January 8–11, 2004), and the upcoming show is no exception. In addition to Fried Products' aggressive relaunch (see <A HREF="/news/122203fried">related story</A>), several other companies are heading in new directions.
<B>PJ HARVEY: <I>Dry</I></B><BR>
Too Pure/Indigo/Island 162-555 001-2 (CD only). Head, PJ Harvey, Robert Ellis, prods.; Head, eng. AAD? TT: 40:06
Sony's first flagship Super Audio CD player was the two-channel SCD-1, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?180">reviewed by Jonathan Scull</A> in November 1999. (The $5000 SCD-1 had balanced outputs; the cosmetically different but otherwise identical $3500 SCD-777ES had unbalanced outputs and was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?346">reviewed by Chip Stern</A> in April 2001.) Sony's second-generation flagship player, the $3000 SCD-XA777ES, was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?491">reviewed by Kalman Rubinson</A> in January 2002, and added multichannel capability with channel-level adjustment and bass management. Sony's third-generation flagship is the SCD-XA9000ES, also priced at $3000, which adds time-delay adjustment for its multichannel analog outputs and is presented in a smart new styling that Sony calls "Silver Cascade." The disc drawer and the most frequently used controls are on the angled top half of the brushed-aluminum front panel; in the lower half are the display, the headphone jack and its volume control, and the multifunction control knob.
With the exception of dCS and Accuphase, you don't see anyone jumping on the bandwagon of $15,000-plus SACD players—and for good reason. Despite enthusiasm for the format within the relatively small audiophile community, high-resolution audio isn't exactly making waves on the front pages—or even the back pages—of the mainstream news media. And while ABKCO Records has sold millions of Rolling Stones hybrid SACD/CDs, and Sony is looking to repeat that phenomenon with the recent Dylan hybrids, what's being sold in both cases are CDs, <I>not</I> SACDs. The higher-resolution layer is simply going along for the ride.
The manufacture and marketing of so-called "universal" digital disc players should have been a no-brainer right from the start. I recall the first demo of SACD I attended, when both SACD and DVD-Audio were little more than promises and contentions. That prototype Philips player consisted of several cubic feet of hardware controlled by a computer, even though mockups of more marketable SACD players were arrayed around the room. After the demo, I asked one of the Philips engineers if it were possible to make a player that could handle CD, SACD, <I>and</I> DVD-A. His reply: "Sure, if <I>they</I> let me do it."
Many people complain that the reason record sales are down is that the quality of new music is heading south. Do you agree? Have new releases improved this past year or are they still on a slide?
<A HREF="http://www.siriusradio.com">Sirius Satellite Radio</A> has achieved three milestones in its campaign to reach profitability.
Now that 2003 is almost a memory, it's time for <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1203poty">The 2003 Products of the Year</A>. Once again <I>Stereophile</I>'s writers cast their votes on the year's audio worthies.
And then there were four: Sony's music division and German media company Bertelsmann, parent of the BMG record label, have decided that they've got a better chance under one roof. Last week, the two companies revealed that they will merge their music divisions into a new company called Sony BMG.
Few audio products have proved as enduringly fascinating to audiophiles as William Firebaugh's Well-Tempered Turntable design. At once elegantly simple and technically sophisticated, it was an immediate hit with music lovers and critics alike—and was long a staple of <I>Stereophile</I>'s "Recommended Components" list. For the greater part of the product's 20-year lifespan, the Well-Tempered 'table has been distributed and manufactured under the direction of Transparent Audio, Inc. However, Carl Smith, the Transparent partner who supervised the manufacture of the Well-Tempered line, decided to retire this year, and Transparent determined that it should concentrate on its cable business.