Like Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," her great classic recording of "Fever" was one of those spare, elegant tunes that formed the musical zeitgeist for a whole generation. They were songs that seemed to be everywhere in the sixties—utterly cool, with an adult sophistication we could only dream of acquiring. "Fever" was as incurable as malaria. Once you had…
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Few music lovers who grew up in the 1950s and '60s could have failed to be influenced by torch singer Peggy Lee, who died of heart failure at her Bel Air home on Monday, January 21. Lee was 81 and had been in ill health for several years.
Want to do some audiophile shopping and do some good for others? The Cable Company, along with several manufacturers and audiophile publications, have set up a program by which they offer to donate up to 10% of August purchases to CARE and the International Rescue Committee, these contributions to be used to assist the worldwide disaster-relief efforts of those humanitarian organizations.
According to the company, in the four previous "Summer Against Hunger" efforts they have, with the help of underwriting manufacturers, raised a total of over $50,000 in contributions. The Cable Company…
The high-end audio industry may be in a slump, but the public's appetite for recorded music appears as voracious as ever. MP3, the hottest upstart in the digital audio market, got a big boost in late June when Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. announced the next generation of its popular Rio digital music player, the Rio PMP 500, due to arrive in stores this fall.
At $269, the new PMP 500 offers several advantages over its predecessor, the PMP 300. The 500 can handle up to two hours of music in the MP3 format, or in several other formats, including Microsoft's Windows Media Audio. The…
One of the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is that the US Copyright Office hold hearings every three years to ensure that the DMCA is operating properly. For one month prior to those hearings any interested party can submit comments calling for exceptions or revisions. The latest comment period began on January 4, 2006 and has resulted in some fascinating comments.
Among the most eye-opening was a joint reply filed by 14 content-providing trade groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and…
The roller-coaster fortunes of MP3.com took a downturn April 28, when US district judge Jed S. Rakoff found in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America in its copyright-violation suit against Internet music site MP3.com. Investors in the once–high-flying startup immediately began unloading shares of the company's stock, which had dropped 40% by the end of the trading day.
Damages against MP3.com are still to be assessed, but could run as high as $150,000 for each instance of "willful infringement" of RIAA members' copyrighted works. The total could reach into the billions,…
After learning from John Sunier, publisher of Audiophile Audition, that Naxos, the largest classical label in the world, was expected to cease producing SACDs and DVD-As, I checked with their national publicist, Mark A. Berry. He in turn sought confirmation from Naxos' founder and chairman, Klaus Heymann.
"Naxos has a number of recordings already available in DVD-A and SACD formats," wrote Berry after conferring with his visionary chief. "Naxos continues to record all important orchestral and choral/orchestral productions in surround. While Naxos has no plans to release more recordings in…
You think we've got format problems these days? Take a peek back to 1963, when J. Gordon Holt ripped apart the then-new record technology from RCA in "Down with Dynagroove". Next, Wes Phillips writes an ode to his own Mr. Holland in "A Passion for Music".
Lewis Lipnick explains how musicians can get caught between a rock and a hard place at the recording session in "The Musician in the Middle". Find out the mistake that recording engineers often make with french horns!
Ever been tempted to start your own audio store? Barry Willis, who's seen it all, offers his sage advice in "…
Software giant Microsoft Corporation has entered the audio market with a satellite-and-subwoofer speaker system for use with personal computers. The Digital Sound System 80 made its debut at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), held May 28-30 in Atlanta's World Congress Center. The system was designed in conjunction with Philips Electronics NV of the Netherlands, one of the world's largest electronics companies.
"Digital Sound System 80 will bring PC users sound more like the audio quality they've come to expect from high-end home audio systems," stated an MS press release.…
Day Four at AES. The crowds were somewhat thinner, but the convention floor was still buzzing, still incredibly busy right up to 4pm, the official break-down time. I spent a couple of hours strolling the floor with Vacuum Tube Valley's Eric Barbour, who works another side of the thermionic street as an application engineer for Svetlana, the Portola Valley, CA-based importer of Russian-made tubes. Svetlana will soon be making the ubiquitous 12AX7 and other popular tubes in its St. Petersburg factory, he told me. Instability in Russia has hindered production recently, but Eric said all…
News last week about SafeAudio CD copy protection indicates that while fighting pirates, the major record labels are also attempting to seal off the ability of users to place their own music from CDs onto computers. If they succeed, the only alternative for consumers who want non-pirated music on their desktops will be to buy content directly from the labels themselves, or companies set up to legally supply digital audio.
But is there a viable business model out there that would allow record companies to make money selling music over the Internet and keep their customers happy? There are…