A reduction in value-added taxes (VAT) on music recordings would reduce total retail costs and boost music sales by 95% to 160% in the five countries surveyed—Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Increased sales would offset losses to governments from…
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Respondents to our weekly Stereophile polls often tell us they would buy more CDs if the prices weren't so high. So would their European counterparts, according to a survey released February 18 by the International Federation of Phonograph Industries (IFPI). Prices for recorded music are even higher in Europe than they are in the US.
In a press conference held January 9 at the 1998 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Classic Records announced the debut of the Classic 24/96 digital audio disc "DAD" series of audio-only DVD-Videos. (Video information is included on the disc but represents only a tiny fraction of the data space.)
The original analog master tapes are converted to 24-bit/96kHz digital data through a Muse Model Seven A/D converter and a proprietary hard-disk recording system developed by Muse's Kevin Halverson. After the analog signal is encoded and the data stored on the hard drive, post-…
Most audiophiles probably consider low-fi media such as podcasts irrelevant. But this may change when accessories manufacturer Boston Audio Design launches its new HiFi Industry Podcast Series later this fall.
Podcasts are simply digital audio files, usually very low-resolution MP3 files, that contain a talk program or news or special-interest report featuring spoken word. These files can be subscribed to or downloaded and then played on a portable audio player or computer, or burned to a CD and listened to in the car.
Boston Audio Design's Austin Jackson says its podcasts will be in…
We've learned to pretty much ignore consumer electronics company announcements for their latest CD and DVD players/burners. The usual "breakthrough" turns out to be yet another faster record/playback speed bump, or a longer list of compatible formats (Panasonic's latest recorder, announced last week, can handle—take a deep breath—DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, and CD-ROM discs).
But here's something completely different in a CD recorder. Last week, Yamaha Electronics introduced its DiscT@2 Laser Labeling System, which takes advantage of the…
Thanks to an agreement reached in October, musicians, rather than their record labels, will receive royalty payments for the use of recordings distributed over the Internet or broadcast over cable and satellite systems. Royalty collection agency SoundExchange will distribute payments directly to performers, regardless of their contracts with the record companies, according to a statement issued the second week of November.
SoundExchange paid out $5.2 million to artists and music publishers in October, the first month that the agreement was in force. The agreement was signed by…
The month of December was particularly hard on the music world, which lost three of its greatest talents within a few days of each other: Curtis Mayfield, Grover Washington, Jr., and Charles Earland. All were in their late 50s.
Perhaps the best known of the three, soul singer and songwriter Curtis Mayfield, died on Sunday morning of the 26th at North Fulton Regional Hospital, outside Atlanta. He was 57.
The decade had been a rough one for the trailblazing musician, who was paralyzed from the neck down by a freak accident at a 1990 outdoor concert, in which a lighting rig fell on him…
Powell calls it quits: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael Powell has announced his departure from the regulatory agency. Powell will leave his post by March of this year, according to an announcement made January 21. The son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Michael Powell was appointed an FCC commissioner by then-President Clinton in 1997 and appointed chairman by President Bush in 2001.
A fan of high technology and an ostensible free-marketer, Powell encountered widespread opposition to his efforts to loosen market ownership caps, a move that would have made…
From the September 2004 issue, John Atkinson revs up the Simaudio Moon Equinox CD player, explaining, "When Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield offered me their $2000 Moon Equinox player for inclusion in my irregular series of CD-player reviews, I didn't need to be asked twice."
Listmania from Art Dudley for "Listening #21." AD lists obscure music, overrated music, and "twelve huge pop albums that everybody—critics, record buyers, radio programmers—got right."
Next, Jim Austin ruminates on "House Calls & Home Auditions," noting, "Conventional wisdom has it that you should listen to an…
The Secure Digital Music Initiative's move to establish a copy-prevention technology for commercial recordings has rankled audio engineers, who claim that the audible watermarking technique chosen by the organization could mar high-resolution recordings. Of particular concern are SDMI's testing methods and its rush to get a standard in place without commentary from engineers or the music-buying public.
Last year, SDMI conducted a series of blind listening tests on audio professionals in New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville to determine the audibility of the final contenders among several…
Will the future of audio distribution be dominated by discs or downloads? Will we always have both?
Everywhere I go, I now ask this question. I'm often reminded by audiophiles that humans are hunter/collectors and we like to hoard piles of stuff. It's better if we can see and fondle this stuff. Therefore, there will always be discs, or some physical audio object, around to buy and store, they say.
When talking to music fans with hard drives crammed full of tunes, however, I find they often exhibit all of the hunter/collector tendencies, but emphasize that they can do it without all of…