The internet has been a boon to music lovers, who now can research almost any piece of music or artist, or shop for obscure discs and memorabilia from a plethora of sources. In an interesting twist on the additional material idea, <A HREF="http://www.sonymusic.com">Sony Music</A> has been making supplemental content for selected CD releases available on a special website.
<B>TOM WAITS: <I>Beautiful Maladies</I></B><BR> Island 314-524 519-2 (CD). 1998. Various prods., engs. AAD? TT: 74:00<BR> Performance <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics <B>****?</B>
Are order and justice coming to the lawless frontier of the Internet? The <A HREF="http://www.ascap.com/">American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers</A> has a new tool for cracking down on unauthorized use of copyrighted material on the Internet. Developed by <A HREF="http://www.omservices.com/">Online Monitoring Services</A>, EZ-Seeker is "web crawler" software that tracks down music and then issues license forms to the users of that music. The announcement followed by less than a week the news (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10208/">previous report</A>) of the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America</A>'s $750,000 settlement from makers of unauthorized "DJ compilations" of hit songs.
Canton, MA-based <A HREF="http://www.tweeter.com/">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group</A> (NASDAQ: TWTR) has gone public. Last Thursday, July 16, the East Coast audio and video retailer launched an initial public stock offering of 2.71 million shares at an offering price of $17/share.
The Three Tenors may have reached a global audience of 2 billion people during their performance prior to the final game of the World Cup, but they had only 80,000 fans on hand in Paris's Champs de Mars park, acording to estimates by Paris police. That number was only 10% of the anticipated 800,000, most of whom stayed away because of unseasonably cold and windy weather.
Tone controls? I ripped them out of my Dyna PAS-3! And that was the last time I had tone controls. As a card-carrying audiophile, I wanted just what the engineer had inscribed on the recording, with as little change as possible (read: high fidelity).
John Atkinson recently forwarded me an e-mail from reader Daniel Sandmeier. Eight full months after moving into a new home, Mr. Sandmeier had finally experimented with speaker placement. He was flabbergasted by the result.
Here's the first joke to get you started:<P>Q. How many audiophiles does it takes to change a light bulb?<P>A. One, and 33-1/3 to explain the superiority of candles. (Thanks to Bryan Stanton)<P><I>OR</I><P>A. Three: one to do it and two to discuss how the old bulb was better with this particular socket and wiring system.<BR><P><I>OR</I> (from Kal Rubinson)<P>A. One, but he has to stand on TipToes to do it.<BR>
The High End has reached a new low, one characterized by "existential angst." That's how Lawrence M. Fisher of the <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/"><I>New York Times</I></A> describes the industry's ongoing malaise. In a well-researched and well-written piece that appeared last Thursday, July 9, Fisher cites "demographic and economic issues beyond its control and technological trends that threaten its very relevance." He mentions the economic crisis in Asia---destination for a large proportion of American high-end audio products---as a major contributing factor to the stagnation in which much of the industry is mired.