Yet, many displays overcome these obstacles to become an oasis of transcendental audio bliss. Partially hidden at the back of the St. Tropez, in a group of large demo rooms called the "Golden Section" by show organizers, was just such a room. I was invited in to one of these rooms by…
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As an audiophile manufacturer, the odds are stacked against you getting a great sounding demo up and running under show conditions. The rooms are generally skimpy and oddly shaped, the construction materials and walls unpredictable, and there's the need to set up fast with only what you've thought to pack in.
The format battle over what goes into your audio player's disc drawer could soon be rendered moot. Forget SACD and DVD-Audio: it's the format war taking place on your desktop that may determine the real future of audio. And, believe it or not, audiophiles might win, too.
We sat down with David Caulton, the group product manager for Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division, to discover what was behind the Windows Media Audio logos that are starting to pop up on consumer electronics gear (such as the new Pioneer Elite multichannel receivers), and also learn how the future for high…
Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)---the well-publicized successor to VHS tapes, compact discs (CDs), and CD-ROMs---will struggle in the video and music industries, but be a major success for the personal computer industry, according to a recent report from Forrester Research. The report concludes that PC manufacturers will rapidly embrace DVD, resulting in an installed base of 53 million DVD-equipped PCs by 2002.
The next five years will prove less favorable for the video and music industries' DVD efforts, however. In 2002, only 5.2% of US households will own a DVD-Video player, while only 2…
The European Commission isn't especially fond of joint ventures by international media conglomerates. Last year, the EC successfully squashed a proposed merger of EMI and Warner Music Group on the grounds that WMG's parent company, AOL Time Warner (then simply Time Warner), combined with the UK's biggest name in music, would create "a virtual monopoly" of the European music market. A few months later, merger discussions between EMI and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) similarly went nowhere. EC investigators also looked into price-fixing in the European CD market early this year.
Now the…
Kalman Rubinson gives a long listen to the 1998 Stereophile Editor's Choice winner, the Z-Systems rdp-1 digital preamplifier. Like many audiophiles, Kal eschewed tone controls in favor of the purist approach—until he met the rdp-1. As he puts it: "Now, the time has come for DSP to give the audiophile some powerful tools to tailor frequency response and to correct faults in the recording."
While he was reviewing the rdp-1, Kal Rubinson also put the NAD 118 digital preamplifier under the sonic microscope. He writes: " . . . they differ in terms of capabilities, intended applications,…
Linear buys Sunfire: Following its acquisition of Imerge and Niles, Linear, LLC, a division of Nortek, Inc. has acquired Sunfire Corporation, manufacturer of high-end amplifiers and speakers. No details of the deal were disclosed, other than to say that Bob Carver "will remain with Sunfire."
Hafler no more: Recent visitors to Hafler's website have been greeted with the following notice:
"Dear Hafler Enthusiasts,
"Hafler Professional products are no longer being manufactured.
"If you are in need of product information, specifications or owners manuals, this website is fully…
Cirrus Logic has become the latest chipmaker to license audio watermarking technology from San Diego–based Verance Corporation. Cirrus will integrate Verance copy-prevention and copy-tracking technology in "a new line of high-performance chipsets for DVD devices," according to a November 20 announcement. Cirrus Logic's entry into the DVD-A arena may help boost market acceptance of the DVD-A format, executives conjectured.
Cirrus recently unveiled a programmable DVD platform, the CS98200, described as a "multi-functional chip designed to help bring advanced consumer features such as DVD-…
I've been thinking about women. All weekend long. While that, by itself, is nothing unusual for me, here at Home Entertainment 2005, I''ve been thinking particularly about the small number of female enthusiasts within the hobby of high-end audio.
"It's a male sport," says Moscode designer, George Kaye.
Ninety-eight percent," agrees Lorraine Janeway, president of Aperion Audio.
We're standing in Aperion's static display room, and I’ve just asked the question I’d been waiting all weekend for, without knowing who to ask before I was fortunate enough to meet Lorraine. And now, we’re…
Recently, Analog Devices announced the worldÆs first High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) decoder chip with 32-bit internal precision. The ADSP-21061 SHARC programmable digital signal processor will enable HDCD decoding to be incorporated into a wide variety of consumer audio and home-theater products, according to an AD press release dated March 26. The SHARC DSP can perform up to 150 million operations per second, and includes one megabit of onboard memory, six DMA channels, and two serial ports. The highly integrated decoder is claimed to perform HDCD decoding without external…
For the first time in five years, New York City will play host to the largest hi-fi and home theater show in the US. Home Entertainment 2001 promises to be the largest and most comprehensive such event to date when it takes place this spring at the Hilton New York & Towers Hotel on May 11-13, 2001.
Co-sponsored by Stereophile, Home Theater, and Stereophile Guide to Home Theater magazines, Home Entertainment 2001 is expected to draw an audience of more than 10,000 audio and home-theater enthusiasts. It is the ultimate showcase of the latest in consumer electronics products and the…