News

A merger announced Wednesday, July 12 by Columbia, Maryland–based USA">http://www.usadr.com/">USA Digital Radio and Lucent">http://www.lucentdigitalradio.com/">Lucent Digital Radio of Warren, New Jersey may hasten the creation of a unified US standard for terrestrial digital radio, according to industry analysts. The merger was approved by the National Radio Systems Committee, which is in charge of developing a set of digital radio specifications for the US. It was also backed by 15 companies involved in the rollout of digital radio, including Viacom Inc.'s Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and Clear Channel Communications, Inc.

Chip Stern notes that, "as often as not, it ain't the heat—it's the stupidity. When confronted by the smattering of self-referential dilettantes, acrimonious Internut wannabes, and obsessive-compulsive types who suck the air out of our aural fun-house, I find myself overcome with the desire to program my phaser for Clip." And fire away he does in "Snobs">http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/246/">Snobs, Slobs, & Marley's Ghost," added to the Archives this week.

By their very nature, most audiophiles seem perpetually restless, never content with that last tweak. Following in that hallowed tradition, PS">http://www.psaudio.com">PS Audio has been trying to reinvent the technologies traditionally used in power-line conditioners to optimize those pulses of alternating current that juice our audio systems. The company made waves with the introduction of their Power Plant line of products last year (see previous">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10317/">previous report); their P300 garnered a very positive reviewhttp://www.stereophile.com//accessoryreviews/181/">review; from Stereophile's Robert Deutsch.

With Napsterhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10793/">Napster; as the little red devil with a pitchfork prodding them on, the third-largest record company in the world, EMIhttp://www.emigroup.com">EMI;, making good on its earlier">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10745/">earlier announcement, last week became the first major label to begin releasing music online. In a move the company hopes will silence the critics who say that Napster has become successful because the big labels have provided no Web-based alternatives, EMI put over 100 albums and 40 singles online "through all the normal retail websites."

Federal courts long ago established that music fans have certain "fair use" rights when it comes to making copies of recordings they own. They can transfer recordings from one format to another—such as from LP to cassette tape or from CD to MiniDisc—and they can share those recordings with others, provided that the results are only for private, noncommercial use.

Editor's Note: Richard">http://www.richardhess.com">Richard Hess has recently spent time remastering several CDs and wrote about the experience for an engineering newsgroup. We think Stereophile's online readers will find his comments about the process interesting.

Information released last week by NPD">http://www.intelectmt.com">NPD Intelect reveals eye-opening statistics about digital audio recorder formats. The numbers show that, from January to May 2000, unit shares of digital recording sales in retail stores were 30.8% for CD recorders (not including computer-based systems), 40.9% for MiniDisc recorders, and 28.3% for MP3 recording devices (also not including computer-based systems).