News

La Stupenda is no more. The brilliant coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland, who died a thousand deaths onstage after emitting flawless high E-flats, died at her home near Montreux, Switzerland, on Sunday, October 10. Her death was confirmed by her frequent stage partner and friend, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.

Next weekend's Rocky">http://audiofest.net/2010/index.php?Sid=860cc0cc7b60fd7f9bd2725ff657784… Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) is bigger than ever. Scheduled to be held October 15–17 in the Denver Marriott Tech Center, the seventh annual show has expanded from last year's 145 display rooms to a record 174. Add in silent displays in hallways, and there were products in every price range from a good 400 companies (up from 350 in 2009). Now occupying six floors in the Marriott Tower (including the mezzanine) and two in the Atrium, the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has well earned its reputation as the largest consumer-audio and home-entertainment show in the US since the demise of the Stereophile Shows.

Looking back at the 2010 CEDIA Exposition, I was struck by a couple of new products which, I hope, presage a rethinking of modern electronics design. Today, the streaming of program content can be accomplished by TVs, by Blu-ray players, by dedicated servers and, for all I know, someone will put that capability into a speaker system. The result is that, unless one chooses very carefully, one will be buying the same technology redundantly. By contrast, high-end companies have striven to separate their dedicated analog/stereo products from their digital/multichannel products, forcing the very picky among us into a kludgy home-theater-bypass. Again, we end up buying more boxes and interconnections than should be necessary.

Back in Atlanta's World Congress Center for the second year it is hot (around 90°F) and humid outside but it is cool at the 2010 CEDIA Exposition. On the very first full day, I found a slew of interesting new loudspeakers and that's despite having seen less than a third of the Show floor. Undoubtedly more will be discovered but it is great to say that all of the most intriguing new ones are relatively inexpensive.

Even as editing continues on his forthcoming Stereophile recording of Brahms' Handel Variations and Schumann's Symphonic Études, Canadian pianist Robert Silverman is set to perform and re-record all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Silverman's eight-concert series of Beethoven sonata performances and recordings will take place in San Jose's lovely Le Petit Trianon Theatre, beginning this coming Thursday, September 9 and ending on April 14, 2011.

Klaus Heymann has some surprising news. During an in-person chat in the lobby of San Francisco's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the founder of the label that turned the classical-music recording industry on its ear revealed that, in the US, classical-music sales for the labels that Naxos distributes are stable.

Reflecting dramatic changes in the high-end industry, British loudspeaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins has developed for its products a new US retail outlet. Beginning in October, audio shoppers will be able to audition and buy the company's loudspeakers in Best Buy's chain of Magnolia stores.