Since we have just added the 2003 "Recommended Components" for purchase as indexed and searchable pdf files on the website, we include JA's "As We See It" from a few years back: "Recommended Components: The Stereophile Way." As Atkinson notes, "Recommended Components" is "the only place where the experiences of all reviewers…
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From the March 2004 issue, John Atkinson finally gets to listen to the Sonus Faber Cremona loudspeaker and explains, "it took rather longer than I had expected to set the Cremonas up in my listening room. But, like everything worth experiencing, the wait was worth it."
Last night I saw him on the stair—
the little man who wasn't there.
I saw him there again today;
oh, how I wish he'd go away.
the little man who wasn't there.
I saw him there again today;
oh, how I wish he'd go away.
This childhood ditty about a malevolent, ephemeral figure pretty well sums up the audiophile position on watermarking: the mere thought of it is disturbing. Of the respondents to last week's Stereophile "Vote!" question, 90% say they hate the concept or plan to boycott watermarked music. That's quite a bit of animosity toward something that, at this point, is only experimental.
What's really disturbing is running up against your own inadequacies in…
The development of digital AM-radio technology moved a step closer last month when the Fraunhofer Institut Integrierte Schaltungen) (IIS) signed a consortium agreement for the development of digital AM radio with several international radio broadcasters, network operators, and manufacturers.
According to a consortium statement, the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) consortium "is committed to establishing the standard for new digital AM radio technology, improving reception quality and ease of use in the bands below 30MHz, the shortwave, medium-wave, and long-wave bands." Digital Radio Mondiale…
Youth may not be the only thing that's wasted on the young. Many recent studies have shown that as people age, they have increased difficulty getting a good night's sleep. A new study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing indicates that listening to soft music may help people with sleep disorders to fall asleep faster.
The study involved two groups of participants, between the ages of 60 and 83, who suffered from sleep disorders that manifested as depression, cognitive impairment, or medical/environmental problems that interfered with sleep. People who meditated or who used sleep…
Music publishing organizations such as ASCAP and BMI have long worked out licensing deals with radio broadcasters, who pay royalties in exchange for playing music over the air. A US Copyright Office panel is now suggesting that online broadcasters also pay royalties, this time directly to the record labels, in a recommendation that has so far left all parties unhappy, particularly broadcasters.
The Copyright Office ruled late in 2000 that royalty fees would be required from broadcasters who also stream their signals online, stating, "Transmissions of a broadcast signal over a digital…
The streak of acquisitions for D&M Holdings continues. Last month saw the company pick up its third major consumer electronics brand when McIntosh Laboratory was brought into the fold with Denon and Marantz. Last week, D&M announced that it was successful in a bid to acquire certain assets comprising the digital video recorder and MP3 business units of troubled SONICblue.
D&M Holdings says it will purchase the SONICblue assets, which include the ReplayTV and Rio brands, for $36.2 million. The bidding process occurred last week during an auction of SONICblue's assets in the US…
The war over digital copyright protection intensified in late July, when the American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal attack against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Almost simultaneously, a congressman from Southern California introduced a bill that would give copyright holders the right to hack computers owned by suspected copyright violators.
On Thursday, July 25, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in Boston on behalf of a 22-year-old computer programmer and recent Harvard graduate, Ben Edelman, who has done considerable research into the effectiveness of Internet filtering…
I am sad to say that Larry Archibald's "The Final Word" column in the November issue, posted this week in this website's "Archives" section, is his last. When Larry, Stereophile's publisher emeritus, resigned from his salaried position at Emap Petersen at the end of June, he and I had envisaged him continuing to contribute "The Final Word" to the magazine.
This has not proved possible, so I will take this opportunity to thank Larry for luring me from the UK to the US in 1986, and for having allowed me the editorial freedom to say what I thought needed to be said and to publish what I…
It's still too early in the game to guess what a profitable music download business might look like, but it's clear that it won't involve highly restricted access—or high prices.
Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group both acknowledged this marketplace reality in early June, announcing price reductions for tunes downloaded on the Internet. This summer, UMG, in partnership with Liquid Audio, will offer single tracks for 99 cents each, and full albums for $9.99—with the capability of transfer to MP3 players and other portable devices. Sony will drop its price per track to $1.49…
Most manufacturers who advertise in Stereophile hype an exquisite blend of old world craftsmanship and high technology. The gambit is particularly common in the business of selling loudspeakers, where ad copy pushes the sonic advantages of the latest ultra-stiff, indestructible, and nearly weightless cone materials such as Kevlar, carbon-fiber, anodized aluminum, or platinum-plated titanium.
Here in Marin County, California, the quest for better sound takes a more organic approach. Under the unofficial direction of charismatic loudspeaker guru John Harrison, a growing group of musicians is…