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…
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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
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…
The economic outlook may be gloomy, but there are bright spots here and there. One is Indianapolis-based Klipsch Audio Technologies, which, on November 5, announced a bold expansion program that will add more than 200 people to its workforce.
The new hires will fill jobs in a new 46,000 square foot warehouse and distribution center in Hope, Arkansas, Klipsch's original home, as well as in a new 27,000 square foot engineering and technology center in Indianapolis. Klipsch has already hired 45 new employees in Indianapolis, according to the announcement. Engineering staff in Arkansas are…
Distressed Carver Corporation announced August 31 that founder Bob Carver has signed a letter of intent to return as chairman and CEO of the company he founded 20 years ago. The letter also spells out conditions for a possible merger of Carver and Sunfire Corporation as early as 18 months from now. Sunfire, manufacturer of the highly regarded Sunfire power amplifiers, is Bob Carver's privately held company.
Carver Corp. has been ailing for a long time. On January 8 of this year, three of its directors resigned after the company received notice that it would be delisted effective March…
As digitally recorded music moves through the recording and production chain, it can be handed off to a variety of studios, musicians, producers, record label executives, and mastering engineers. Sometimes this is done with a recordable CD or DVD, sometimes with a portable hard disk, and sometimes via a high-bandwidth Internet connection. Somewhere along the way, a good percentage of those files (some estimate up to 80%) get copied in an unauthorized manner and quickly end up on the Internet or on the street as pirated CDs before any official discs are released.
This problem has become an…