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More Layoffs; Japan Unemployment a Record

Just as the Asian economic crisis a few years ago dealt a big blow to American high-end audio manufacturers, the slowing American economy is causing repercussions for Japanese companies.

In August, electronics industry stalwarts such as Hitachi, Toshiba, and Kenwood all announced massive cutbacks in their workforces. Slowing demand for computers, integrated circuits, and consumer electronics in general has forced the companies to make deep slashes in order to stay afloat.

Hitachi announced that it would post a loss in excess of one billion dollars for the year, and stated that it…

Phase Technology and Audyssey play dARTS!

In this, its 50th year of company operations, Phase Technology announced and demonstrated a new type of loudspeaker system. The series, named dARTS for Digital Audio Reference Theater System, is obviously aimed at the custom-install, home-theater market, but the components and concepts are applicable to music reproduction in any number of channels. As described by PT's director of sales and marketing, Tony Weber, the dARTS system is (1) modular and (2) actively powered and equalized by DSP, incorporating Audyssey's MultiEQ XT for digital room correction.

The modular speaker…

Industry Roundup

Parasound wins design award: Only a week after receiving a Stereophile 2003 "Product of the Year" award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for its excellent Halo JC-1 monoblock power amplifier—Richard Schram is shown accepting the award (right)—Parasound Products won a 2003 "Good Design Award" from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. The company's Halo C1 preamp/surround sound processor emerged on top in the museum's annual design competition, "one of the oldest and most important such events in the world," according to a January 16 announcement from Parasound…

Added to the Archives This Week

Winter had just touched down in Santa Fe two days before the recording sessions were to begin, leading Wes Phillips to wonder if the damp air would wreak havoc with tuning. But he needn't have worried, writing that violinist Ida Levin "played with such intense concentration that sometimes she seemed about to levitate off the floor as she chased a melodic line into the ether." In Duet: And Two to Carry Your Soul Away, Ida Levin and John Atkinson join Wes Phillips in chronicling the recording from both musical and technical perspectives.

Few audio components have lasted as long in the market…

iTunes, uTunes—We All Swoon For iTunes

On July 11, Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas downloaded the 100 millionth song purchased from Apple's iTunes music store. Britten spent 99¢ for "Somersault (Dangermouse remix)" by Zero 7 and, in exchange, won a 17" PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, and a gift certificate entitling him to 10,000 iTunes songs (the approximate capacity of a 40Gb iPod). As Apple counted down to 100 million, it also gave "special 20GB iPods" to the consumers who downloaded each 100,000th song between 95 million and 100 million.

Apple's iTunes music service dominates the market for legal downloads, owning over 70% of the…

Red Rose Music Acquires AudioPrism, Opens for Business

We've all heard of the entrepreneur who liked a product so much that he bought the company. Such bold steps are sometimes wildly successful. Case in point: Mark Levinson and his high-end startup, Red Rose Music.

More than a year ago, the founder of Mark Levinson Audio Systems broke away from his second company, now known as Cello Technologies, to form his third venture in the audio industry. Levinson was hunting for a line of electronics to combine with a new series of high-efficiency ribbon loudspeakers from Swedish designer Bo Bengtsson, now designated the Red Rose Music R1, R2, and…

Have a HAVi New Year

Last week, eight consumer-electronics manufacturers announced the formal establishment of the Home Audio Video Interoperability Organization (HAVi) to promote the development of products based on the the HAVi 1.0 final specification, scheduled for completion in December 1999. (An evaluation version of the HAVi 1.0 final spec can be downloaded from the HAVi website.) The HAVi Organization was founded by Grundig, Hitachi, Matsushita, Philips, Sharp, Sony, Thomson, and Toshiba, which have been working together for over two years to develop a specification to permit interoperability among…

<i>Stereofool</i> Editor Involved with 21-year-old Tube Amp?

In a covert sting operation launched by Stereofool's competitor, Big iF magazine, 24-bit/96kHz tapes have just surfaced revealing a conversation Stereofool editor Acker Johnson (AJ) had with a local dealer in used audio equipment.

Among the shocking details on the tapes: AJ admits to evaluating a dozen or so sets of speakers using a poorly biased 21-year-old tube amplifier from the company McLewintosh. McLewintosh was sold to some Russian investors two years back, and AJ allegedly lost interest in the equipment at that point. In print, however, he claims to have been using the latest…

D&M Acquires Escient

Consolidation is a fact of modern corporate life, but the consumer electronics industry has generally bucked this trend and remained relatively fragmented. Notable exceptions include Harman International and Rockford Corporation (which recently acquired loudspeaker manufacturer NHT)—now it's time to add D&M Holdings to that sparse list.

Two weeks ago, D&M, parent company of Denon and Marantz, announced that it was the high bidder for the ReplayTV (digital video recorder) and Rio (MP3) business units of the bankrupt SONICblue. One month previously D&M gobbled up McIntosh. Now…

Mobile Fidelity Returns

Slow beginnings are sometimes the most successful. Months after its acquisition by Chicago-based Music Direct, legendary audiophile record label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab plans to release Super Audio Compact Discs this winter.

One of the first will be a high-resolution version of Patricia Barber's popular Modern Cool, due to appear in late February, according to MoFi's director of new technology, John Wood. MoFi has worked closely on the project with Barber's label, Premonition Records, also based in Chicago. The release will be part of a MoFi "soft launch" that will eventually include…