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Vacuum Tube SOTA Conference Slated for August 21-24
Stereophile Staff  |  Aug 08, 1998  | 
The Silverdale by the Bay Resort Hotel in Silverdale, WA, will be the site of the second annual Vacuum State of the Art Conference, scheduled for August 21-24. The conference will feature new and vintage equipment, tube electronics seminars, a used-gear swap meet, and demonstrations of audio creations by both amateur and professional designers.
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The Future of Music Distribution?
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 02, 1998  | 
New companies are springing up all around the web to provide songs for custom CD compilations. (See previous articles 1, 2.) You go to the site, choose up to 70 minutes of music from their catalog, and the finished disc is mailed back to you in a couple of days for between 10 and 20 bucks. The challenge for these companies is to have an attractive catalog of artists and songs to choose from.
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DVD Forum Holds US DVD Conference
Stereophile Staff  |  Aug 02, 1998  | 
Frequently a hot topic in the hallowed pages of Stereophile, DVD-Audio will be among the agenda items at the third US DVD Conference on October 1-2, 1998, in San Francisco. Presented by the DVD Forum, the international association working to develop universal DVD formats, the event will take place at the Grand Peninsula Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency SF Airport.
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UCSF Monkey Business Draws McCartney's Ire
Barry Willis  |  Aug 01, 1998  | 
The intentional deafening of monkeys by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has provoked a strongly worded protest by Paul McCartney. In a letter dated July 6, McCartney complained to UCSF Chancellor Michael Bishop that "there can be no excuse for inflicting such misery" on animals used in such experiments. The letter was the latest salvo fired in a controversy going back to early February.
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Consumer Electronics Not Threatened by Y2K, says CEMA
Barry Willis  |  Aug 01, 1998  | 
In the children's fable, Chicken Little, the archetypal alarmist, induced fear and panic in his community by running amok and shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" The hysterical fowl has many relatives among journalists and economists, who regularly issue dire warnings about the forthcoming Year 2000 problem.
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Every Grueling Minute Available for Your Entertainment . . .
Jon (goes to 11) Iverson  |  Jul 26, 1998  | 
The process becomes the product: in an announcement tinged with shades of This Is Spinal Tap, the band LIVE says it will be recording its next album under the scrutiny of a live internet camera. The webcast, which began July 17, is available on LIVE's website 24 hours a day, offering fans and the simply curious an "unblinking" glimpse of the creation of their new album, from "start to finish."
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No Agreement in Sight for Watermarking Issue
Barry Willis  |  Jul 26, 1998  | 
As digital distribution grows, the protection of copyrighted material---music, film, video, photographic images, paintings, drawings, and text---becomes ever more important. Tied to this are widespread concerns about maintaining security during online transactions---keeping credit-card numbers and customers' identities hidden from would-be thieves.
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Calling All The Young Dudes
Ziggy Stardust  |  Jul 26, 1998  | 
He's got his own bonds on Wall Street, houses all over the world, a fashion-model wife, and more wealth than any other rock star to date. But what he really wanted was his own Internet Service Provider. As a result, David Bowie goes online September 1 with the first rock-star-based ISP: BowieNet.
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Burr-Brown Breaks New DAC Ground with PCM1704
Barry Willis  |  Jul 25, 1998  | 
The DAC performance envelope has been pushed further by Burr-Brown Corporation. The Tucson semiconductor company has just announced the commercial release of its new PCM-1704, an ultra-high-quality digital/analog converter chip boasting a 120dB signal/noise ratio. The new chip supersedes the company's PCM-1702, a DAC found in many high-end products and widely considered the state of the art.
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Note to Record Stores: Get Wired
Jon Iverson  |  Jul 19, 1998  | 
A recent report from Jupiter Communications claims that by the year 2002, fully 55% of the US population and 32% of European households will be browsing the Internet. Not only will this change the way poeple gather information for everything from fish food to concert schedules, it will also profoundly affect the way they shop.
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Miles Davis' Kind of Blue Gets the Web Treatment
Jon Iverson  |  Jul 19, 1998  | 
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, Sony Music has been making supplemental content for selected CD releases available on a special website.
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ASCAP Goes After Online Pirates with EZ-Seeker
Barry Willis  |  Jul 18, 1998  | 
Are order and justice coming to the lawless frontier of the Internet? The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers has a new tool for cracking down on unauthorized use of copyrighted material on the Internet. Developed by Online Monitoring Services, 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 previous report) of the Recording Industry Association of America's $750,000 settlement from makers of unauthorized "DJ compilations" of hit songs.
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Tweeter Group Launches IPO
Barry Willis  |  Jul 18, 1998  | 
Canton, MA-based Tweeter Home Entertainment Group (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.
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Three Tenors Reach Global Audience, Play to Disappointing Crowd in Paris
Stereophile Staff  |  Jul 18, 1998  | 
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.
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High End "in a Funk," Claims NY Times
Barry Willis  |  Jul 12, 1998  | 
The High End has reached a new low, one characterized by "existential angst." That's how Lawrence M. Fisher of the New York Times 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.
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