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Added to the Archives This Week

We kick off three speaker reviews from the September issue with Brian Damkroger's assessment of the Audio Physic Virgo III loudspeaker. A perfect meld of minimonitor and full-range bass extension? BD reveals all.

Michael Fremer tackles the "best-selling over-$10,000 loudspeaker in history," the Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppy 7 loudspeaker. While MF can't verify how many pairs of WATT/Puppies have actually sold, he can verify why.

Next, we have Paul Messenger squeezing the new "superspeaker" Focal-JMlab Grande Utopia Be loudspeaker into his listening space. PM wonders, "Is the…

Added to the Archives This Week

With multichannel DVD-Audio just around the corner, the surround-sound debate among audiophiles is starting anew. But how far have we come with surround sound in 30 years? J. Gordon Holt wrote "Bye Bye, Quadrifi?" back in 1971, in which he explored the same dilemmas faced by today's audiophile.

"One thing you have to understand: If you don't have ground, ya gotta get it!" exclaims Jonathan Scull in "Fine Tunes" #23. Scull offers sage advice involving RadioShack wire and water pipes for those living in renovated buildings.

When reviewing the EgglestonWorks Andra loudspeaker back in…

Added to the Archives This Week

After a frustrating late-night duel with evil recording gremlins, JA called it a day. But the next morning he was back at the controls to record Canadian pianist Robert Silverman for what would subsequently become one of Stereophile's popular audiophile recordings: Intermezzo: Works for Piano by Brahms. In Intermezzo: The Santa Barbara Sessions, writer Thomas Norton runs down the key events that finally resulted in a completed analog master tape, with engineering from Water Lily Acoustics' Kavichandran Alexander.

With almost eight years of hindsight, it's now easy to observe that the…

United Kingdom Begins Inquiry into CD Pricing

Major music companies may have conspired to keep CD prices artificially high in the United Kingdom by limiting cheaper imports. That's the presumption behind an inquiry launched February 9 by the British government's Office of Fair Trade.

The OFT believes that the big labels may have "taken concerted action to limit the parallel importing of CDs into the UK from other (European Union) member states," according to a news story appearing in the February 10 edition of The Guardian newspaper. The OFT has officially requested information from seven music companies: Sony Music Entertainment UK…

Added to the Archives This Week

Chip Stern writes, "There is something enduring and reassuring in the classic audio verities." The Vandersteen 2Ce Signature loudspeaker is certainly considered one of those timeless classics. But how does a speaker released in its first incarnation more than 20 years ago hold up by today's standards? Stern lends his modern ear to the task and includes notes from Richard Vandersteen himself.

Next we've got Jonathan Scull's Fine Tunes #28 from the October issue. "If you can't find enough material to keep you and your system spotlessly clean, I'll eat my shorts!" exclaims J-10 after…

2002 CES Day Five

The last day at CES always feels like one of those half-days at school: you may be getting out only a couple of hours early, but everyone starts thinking about going home way before the bell rings. Nonetheless, the die-hard audiophile exhibitors were working up to the last minute and confirmed that show attendance increased steadily right up to the end.

Inspired by a story on the importance of impedance matching by Hervé Deletraz that appeared in the November issue of Stereophile, PBN audio's Peter Noerbaek showed a prototype preamplifier and modified Everest power amp with what he called…

MartinLogan Sold to ShoreView Industries, Inc.

ShoreView Industries, Inc. has acquired MartinLogan Ltd., the Lawrence, KS–based manufacturer best known for its line of high-end electrostatic loudspeakers. Transaction terms have not been disclosed.

Gayle Sanders, MartinLogan's charismatic co-founder—and, until the acquisition, majority owner—will remain with the company as a consultant, according to The Lawrence Journal-World. The rest of MartinLogan's senior management and employees will remain in Lawrence, the paper reports.

ShoreView Industries is a Minneapolis-based private equity limited partnership that "invests in…

Downloading Increases

Downloading audio files, whether through a paid music service or not, continues to grow as a means to accumulate music in the US. According to a recent Ipsos-Insight study, as of April 2003, nearly one-third of the general US population aged 12 or older has downloaded a music or MP3 file from the Internet. This translates into roughly 65 million downloaders.

The survey also notes that enthusiasm for downloading audio files has increased significantly in the past several months, with the proportion of Americans who have downloaded a music or MP3 file growing from 26% in December 2002 to 30…

2003 CES, Day Two

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially opened today and we spent our time at the Alexis Park noticing even more exhibitors than last year. On hand were plenty of new products, companies, and high-rez software demos. Multichannel demos were in heard in several rooms—all to good effect.

We started at the rear of the hotel where we discovered TAD (Technical Audio Devices), a company that, for the past 28 years, has focused only on the pro audio market. It has decided to brave the home audio market and, for the past three years, has been developing a statement loudspeaker that…

Net "Radio" Thrives; May Violate Anti-Piracy Act

A few years ago, when media pundits began discussing the possible ramifications of 500 channels of television, the concept of "narrowcasting" quickly became the buzzword du jour. The idea was that programming in the future would be aimed at increasingly better-defined markets. Rather than an all-sports channel, an astute broadcaster would operate multiple channels devoted to individual sports: an all-basketball channel, for example, or round-the-clock motor sports. Advertising tailored for a tightly defined market might prove more efficient than its shotgun-effect equivalent.

Television…