Sirius Satellite Radio Goes National
<A HREF="http://www.sirius.com">Sirius Satellite Radio</A> is now available nationally.
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Pirates Awash In Swag
As almost any <I>Stereophile</I> reader could <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showvote.cgi?105">tell you</A>, if the record labels want to stem the rushing tide of big-time music piracy, they should consider starting with lower CD prices at retail. In other words, lessen the incentives that drive the illicit music market, and eliminate a sizable percentage of the problem overnight.
Added to the Archives This Week
Jonathan Scull gets intimate with the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/614/">HeadRoom BlockHead headphone amplifier</A> stating, "I listen to headphones for <I>hours</I> at a stretch while writing my reviews. The equipment I listen to spoils me to death, and I need a headphone rig to match." Has J-10 found the ultimate headphone amp? We'll see.
HeadRoom BlockHead headphone amplifier
With whom are you most intimate? Your wife? Husband? Your modern-times Significant Other? Your pet? Or, like a lot of audiophiles, is it your audio system? Do you nitpick and tweak it as if it <I>were</I> your pet?
How important to you are build-quality and appearance, relative to sound quality?
We all know that how a product <I>sounds</I> is the ultimate audiophile criterion. But reader Pete Montgomery wonders how important build-quality and appearance are as well.
Digital Tattoo
We've learned to pretty much ignore consumer electronics company announcements for their latest CD and DVD players/burners. The usual "breakthrough" turns out to be yet another faster record/playback speed bump, or a longer list of compatible formats (Panasonic's latest recorder, announced last week, can handle—take a deep breath—DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, and CD-ROM discs).
Coming Soon Down Under: Copy Kiosks
The copy cat will soon be out of the bag down under. Australia's musical copyright society has reluctantly agreed to the deployment of CD-copying kiosks throughout the nation in exchange for what an Australian news site calls "a modest royalty payment" of about 6% of the $5AUS copying fee—or 30¢ per disc.
Timothy White, 1952–2002
<I>Stereophile</I> writers and editors were saddened to learn of the June 27 death of colleague Timothy White, editor-in-chief of <A HREF="http://www.billboard.com"><I>Billboard</I></A> magazine. White collapsed of an apparent heart attack in an elevator at <I>Billboard</I>'s New York offices and died shortly thereafter at St. Vincent's Hospital. He was 50.
CD Lockdown
They have become the companies music fans around the world love to hate. But to their stockholders, the businesses developing CD-restriction technologies are a promising new technology niche for investing. <A HREF="http://www.sunncomm.com">SunnComm</A> is one of these new companies dedicated to finding means to restrict the ways consumers can use compact discs, and last week they used their annual stockholder meeting as an opportunity to announce their latest copy-protection product.