News

Breaking news at the 2001 CEDIA Expo, held this past weekend in Indianapolis, IN, was that Harry Pearson, founder and editor of bimonthly high-end audio magazine The Absolute Sound, has apparently been moved to one side. According to TAS publisher Mark Fisher, with whom I spoke briefly Sunday morning on the Show floor, the day-to-day editing of the magazine will become the responsibility of erstwhile Stereophile consulting technical editor Robert Harley.

Forget the SACD/DVD-Audio format wars, a more interesting (and potentially more devastating to consumers) battle is brewing among companies racing to add copy protection technology and other restrictions to compact discs.

The Super Audio CD has won the endorsement of two more major record labels, according to press releases issued the last week of August. The announcements followed by only a few days one by Universal">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11123/">Universal Music Group that it would begin producing the high-resolution recordings for mass distribution.

Melville, NY–based manufacturer http://www.josephaudio.com"> Joseph Audio announced September 1 that the company was "pleased to accept the 'Best Sound at Show' award as determined by the votes of attendees" at the Home Entertainment 2001 event held in May at the NY Hilton. "We're deeply grateful that so many at the show felt that our RM33si Signature at $7500/pair was worthy of such an honor," said company president Jeff">mailto:Josephaud@aol.com">Jeff Joseph.

In his review of the Conrad-Johnson">http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/403/">Conrad-Johnson Premier Eleven power amplifier, Wes Phillips comes clean and admits that he loves to be seduced by sound. Phillips writes, "Now, I'm not proposing that we embrace coloration . . . but the removal of all pleasure-producing tonalities doesn't necessarily make for increased realism."

For many audiophiles, the reasonably priced "universal" DVD-Audio/SACD/CD player is the magic combination that will trigger a jump into the new high-resolution audio formats. As an answer to those universal player prayers, Wolfson">http://www.wolfsonmicro.com">Wolfson Microelectronics, UK–based developer of audio ICs for multimedia and communications applications, announced the introduction of two new six-channel audio DAC chips last week—one of which brings the contentious formats together in one box.

Now that satellite radio services XM">http://www.xmradio.com">XM Radio and Sirius">http://www.siriusradio.com">Sirius Radio have their "birds" in position, they are encountering a slew of unexpected roadblocks here on earth. Among the problems: loss of signal in tunnels and urban canyons, interference with wireless communications, and a lighting technology that emits strong radio waves close to the broadcasters' assigned bands.