News

It's been a long time coming, but it is finally happening. As I write these words, T.H.E. Show (aka The Home Entertainment Show), the successor to the late Richard Beers' original T.H.E. Show that began as an alternative high-end showplace to CES, is about to begin in the Long Beach Hilton. (That's Long Beach, California, for the uninitiated.) Dealers and exhibitors have set up in 20 or so rooms and numerous marketplace booths, said their prayers, enjoyed dinner in the hotel or in downtown Long Beach, and begun to burrow in for the night. As they do, components cook, cables settle, and the acoustic gods and karmic gatekeepers prepare to hold their traditional midnight meeting of the minds to decide each exhibitor's fate.

When I joined Hi-Fi News in the mid-1970s, one of that magazine's stable mates reviewed cars. An automotive writer appeared in the pub one lunchtime—"I rolled another one," he said, as he joined us at the bar. It turned out that one of his tasks was to take a car he was testing to the skid pad to see how many lateral G's the car could handle. Of course, the chances of a consumer turning that car over were minimal, but the reviewer was investigating the edges of the performance envelope.

As I became familiar with audio measurements, it struck me that the equivalent of the skid pan test was the thermal preconditioning we perform when we get an amplifier on the test bench. Even if an end-user doesn't drive his amplifier into thermal meltdown, the edges of the envelope need to be explored.

"Pints With Ayre," the series of videos produced by Colorado manufacturer Ayre Acoustics, has been regular viewing chez Atkinson during these pandemic times. Covering subjects like volume control design, amplifier gain stages, audio transformers, and listening tests, the series presents sometimes esoteric technical subjects in an easy-to-grasp manner.

In the latest episode of “Pints With Ayre,” I was invited to talk about a subject close to my heart, the how and why a review magazine’s reviews should be accompanied by measurements. You can find my current thoughts at the link in this article. I don’t think I gave too many secrets away!

I was shocked and greatly saddened by news of the passing, at age 68, of Brian W. Russell, President and co-founder (along with his brother Chris Russell) of Bryston, Inc.

The organizers of the 2021 Florida Audio Expo have announced the show's cancellation. All deposits, the organizers say, have already been refunded.

Denver’s Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) has canceled its 2020 show.

On May 5, Joel Davis, founder and CEO of JD Events (JDE), the company that mounts the annual AXPONA—Audio Expo North America—proposed a “rollover plan” settlement for companies that had committed funds to the canceled 2020 show, which had been scheduled for April, postponed until August, and then, finally, canceled. The plan attempts to “right the ship in the midst of this pandemic storm” and to demonstrate the company's “long-term commitment” to continuing to serve the audio industry. Many exhibitors were unhappy that, in canceling the show, did not offer refunds of funds already committed to the show by exhibitors and sponsors.