He studied electronics and acoustics, and at the same time his passions for music and radio, both amateur and FM, developed. It was early days in the professional recording business, and his first business venture was to start up the famous Olympic Studios—Led Zeppelin, The Who,…
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Angus McKenzie was a wholly remarkable individual. One of British hi-fi’s legends, he was the country's leading equipment reviewer for more than a decade, but that was only one of several careers and passions he pursued with repeated and conspicuous success, despite losing his sight completely at the age of 26.
Audiophiles have had little reason to follow the high-definition video DVD format conflict. Until now.
For those who haven't been keeping tabs on the HD video struggles, two competing formats for storing HD video on disc have emerged: Blu-ray and HD DVD. The Blu-ray Disc Association, a 13-member group, which includes Sony, Philips, Panasonic, and Pioneer, claims that Blu-ray DVD players could be available by midyear 2005. High-Definition Digital Versatile Disc or HD DVD is a different and non-compatible technology using blue lasers, which is backed by Japanese electronics firms Toshiba and…
Québec Audio & Video, Canada's premier home entertainment magazine, is hosting its fourth annual contest held in conjunction with the Home Entertainment 2004 Show, scheduled to take place May 20–23, 2004 in New York City.
The Grand Prize winner and his or her guest will receive a trip for two to New York City to attend Home Entertainment 2004. Accommodations will be at the Hilton New York Hotel & Towers, the location of the event, courtesy of the Show's co-sponsors—Primedia Publishing's home-technology magazines: Home Theater, Stereophile, Stereophile's Ultimate AV(Formerly…
For the second consecutive year, a film using the Nagra Digital Recorder (Nagra-D) as the location sound device has been nominated for an Oscar Award for Best Sound. The film this year is L.A. Confidential, which has received a total of 9 Oscar nominations. The winners will be named at the 70th Annual Academy Awards on March 23, 1998. Last year, The English Patient, which also used the Nagra-D, won the award for Best Sound
Recording engineer Kirk Francis used the Nagra-D to capture sound for L.A. Confidential, and has also been nominated for Best Location Sound Mixer by the Cinema…
Move over, CDNow, N2K, and Music Boulevard---Amazon.com and Best Buy want to play.
Within a few days of each other, Amazon.com and Best Buy Company announced that they were entering the Internet's music-retailing market. Amazon.com is reputed to be the world's largest bookseller. Electronics retailer Best Buy operates 284 discount outlets, primarily in the eastern part of the United States.
Reuters news service reported Feb. 24 that Amazon has made a formal commitment to online music sales. No specific date was announced for the debut, but it is expected this year. "The company…
Robert Deutsch writes that "There's a well-known tradeoff in speaker design between sound quality for one listener vs. multiple listeners." But his review of the Dunlavy SC-IV/A loudspeaker reveals that, in the hands of a great designer, these limitations can sometimes be transcended. How did John Dunlavy do it? Deutsch gets to the bottom of this, and more.
Next, a topic that can aways get the audiophile blood boiling: George Reisch discovers that, "Yes, meter-carrying objectivists and wide-eyed subjectivists can carry on worse than Republicans and Democrats in Congress." As he writes in…
Consumer electronics stores have long carried computer gear, everything from laptops and desktop systems to software and accessories. Computer stores, led by Gateway Country stores, have slowly been moving in the other direction. Now it looks as if convergence in the retail realm is about to take another great leap forward.
On November 19, CompUSA announced that it would be making room for home entertainment products in 181 of its 227 stores. Reflecting "the convergence of technology and entertainment," in the words of a company press release, the effort will put flat-panel televisions, A/V…
Gateway Computer appears intent on expanding into the home entertainment arena.
Just a month after launching a 42" plasma television at a $3000 breakthrough price, Gateway announced a partnership with music subscription service pressplay that will enable legal downloads to consumers' computers.
Purchasers of new Gateway computers can also receive a pre-loaded 8.5-gigabyte music library—the so-called Gateway Music Vault by pressplay—and pre-installed pressplay software. The 8.5GB Music Vault includes approximately 2000 popular songs, according to a December 5 announcement. Older…
It's been a roller coaster ride for satellite radio upstarts Sirius Radio and XM Radio this past week as both companies fortunes shifted yet again. In a classic billion-dollar consumer electronics gamble, Sirius and XM are betting that they can reach critical mass by selling enough specially equiped digital radio receivers through car manufacturers while simultaneously signing up enough subscribers to reach profitability.
As reported previously, XM Radio finally launched the first of its satellites, "Rock," in mid-March after frustrating delays, putting it behind rival Sirius in the…
March 9, AKM Semiconductor, Inc. introduced the AK5392, a 24-bit stereo analog-to-digital (A/D) converter based on its proprietary dual-bit delta-sigma technology. The AK5392 reportedly achieves a dynamic range of 116dB, said to be a 15dB improvement over other single-chip alternatives.
This level of performance previously required at least a two-chip solution (sometimes with both pieces of silicon in a single package), and consumed almost twice as much power. Thus, the chip is seen as a boon to high-quality audio recording, while the cost advantages of single-chip implementation allow…