Recent announcements indicate that DVD-Audio may soon emerge as a set of standards. Assuming that a DVD-Audio disc is not backward-compatible with CD players, but will play on the new DVD player (with DVD-Audio update) you just bought, how much would you spend for the special discs?
Up from the deep: Torrance, CA-based <A HREF="http://wherehouse.com/">Wherehouse Entertainment</A> announced last week that it will purchase <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/music">Blockbuster Music</A> from Viacom Inc. for $115 million. The merged operation will have 598 stores throughout North America, second only to Minnesota-based Musicland. The deal comes at the end of a prolonged slump for the music industry, one that was particularly hard for Blockbuster.
As with past HI-FI Shows, we asked visitors to HI-FI '98 to vote for the room that offered what they thought to be the best sound. The ballot in the Show Guide asked visitors to list the best, second-best, third-best, and worst sounds, for which I allocated 3 points, 2 points, 1 point, and -1 point, respectively. Any exhibitor that received more than 0.7% of the total votes cast is listed in the Table. I've tried to include both the exhibitors and the brands demonstrated, as listed in the Show Guide and in our report text in the September issue of the paper <i>Stereophile</i>. My apologies if I've left anyone out.
Enhanced Compact Discs (ECDs) are one of a host of hybrids and mutations popping up in the garden of digital infotainment. Many ECDs have added biographical text, still pictures, short video clips, and garish graphics to bulk up the content of basic music CDs. Others provide links to fan clubs, to an artist's website, or to the record label's home page. Most such efforts could be categorized as "art for art's sake"---experimental projects undertaken without any clear idea as to how the finished product will be used. "Value added" is usually the justification, but rarely the result.
The <A HREF="http://www.paradigm.ca">Paradigm Group</A> announced today that they have entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of <A HREF="http://www.sonicfrontiers.com">Sonic Frontiers Inc.</A>, of Oakville, Ontario, as the first step in a comprehensive restructuring plan that will lead to an expansion of Sonic Frontiers.
Another crucial piece of the DVD-Audio puzzle fell into place recently when the WG-4 (Working Group 4) DVD-Audio Working Group approved the adoption of MLP (see previous articles <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10188/">1</A>, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10200/">2</A>) as the lossless algorithm for DVD-Audio at its August 5th meeting in Tokyo. WG-4 will require official approval from its supervising organizations, the Technical Coordination Group and Steering Committee---considered a formality at this point.
We've all got to start somewhere, and audiophiles often begin with the guidance of someone close to them. Tell us who it was and how it happened.
This last year has seen several companies proclaim the launch of the "world's first digital loudspeaker." The term brings to mind some exotic new approach that is neither cone nor ribbon nor electrostat---something as different from all of those as, say, a CD is from a vinyl record or cassette tape.