They remember a time, before the Internet and MP3, before the very first CD recorder even, when they were able to hobble the slightest hint of a consumer digital recording format, such as DAT, with a copy restriction system like SCMS. With standards for consumer DAT tied up in committees and…
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Let's try to imagine the ideal music-buying landscape from a record company's point of view. As distasteful as this may seem to an ever-growing legion of unhappy audiophiles and music fans, it can go a long way towards explaining why the major labels appear to suddenly be at war with their customers.
The Swedes have found a new way to kill time on those long, cold Scandinavian winter nights. On February 7, Swedish Radio (SR) announced that it had begun multichannel test transmissions from the Sirius 2 satellite, utilizing DTS's Coherent Acoustics compression/ decompression algorithm. The tests are intended to run until the end of April 2003.
SR says the 24-hour, "free-to-air" broadcasts are being transmitted across Europe using both the Nordic and European beams of the Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) Sirius 2 satellite (5 degrees East), on 12,245.34 MHz Vertical and 12,379.60 MHz…
In hopes of stoking the multichannel DVD-Audio engine, Burr-Brown announced last week the PCM1604 audio digital-to-analog converter, which they describe as a high-performance, 6-channel audio DAC featuring 24-bit capability and 192kHz sampling, for use in a "wide variety of multichannel audio applications."
The company says that the PCM1604 contains six 24-bit/192kHz DACs combined on a single monolithic integrated circuit and sporting a 105dB dynamic range and –95dB THD+N on each of its six channels. According to Burr-Brown, the internal digital filter operates at 8x oversampling (96kHz…
Recording artists may soon have improved health care coverage, should an historic agreement be ratified by members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).
On Monday, September 29, the union's national board of directors unanimously approved a tentative agreement with the music industry's "Big Five" (BMG, EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group) and sent it on to the union's Health & Retirement Funds board of trustees and to the general membership for ratification. The agreement would make available health care…
We were saddened to learn that the great jazz organist Jimmy Smith died in his sleep on February 8. He was 76.
On January 7 this year, Smith was designated a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master, although, in truth, the NEA lagged severely behind legions of fans when it acknowledged Smith's musical mastery.
A few jazz musicians played the organ before Jimmy Smith—Fats Waller and Count Basie, for example—but the way Smith played, it sounded as though he had invented the instrument. In a way, he had. Smith played the Hammond B3 like no one before him. He played walking (…
The courtship between two music-retailing giants is over. CDnow and Columbia House have decided to call off a merger that had been in discussion since last summer. The official explanation from executives close to the deal was a sharp decline in Columbia House's profitability over the past several months.
The announcement came in mid-March among news of declining interest among investors in new e-commerce ventures. The marriage of the music retailers had been delayed by prolonged regulatory investigation following the announced merger of Time Warner and America Online. Columbia House is…
Low-power radio is once again an issue at the Federal Communications Commission, and this time the agency is feeling the heat not only from community activists, but from rock artists as well. Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and the Indigo Girls are just a few of the performers who have rallied behind a proposal to license 100W-to-1000W radio stations to private citizens, according to Frank Ahrens in the October 24 edition of the Washington Post.
Low-power transmitters have become extremely affordable in recent years, and the FCC has had an ongoing battle with unlicensed broadcasters, or "…
There have been even further developments on the Sony BMG root kit debacle since the last time we updated you. The reports that Sony artists were unhappy that the company had been caught compromising consumers' computers were confirmed by Newsweek. That magazine reported that Trey Anastasio's Shine, which was released on November 1, the day after the story broke, sold 15,000 copies in its first week, but plummeted to 7,000 by week two, when the story was all over the press. Since then, all 52 albums with the XCD "protection" have been pulled. Patrick Jordon, director of marketing at Red…
Recent financial reports from the consumer electronics industry are all over the map, with some manufacturers reporting declines while others report gains. Sony and Samsung have both posted losses, but Toshiba and JVC made money. Pioneer is holding steady.
Sony's annual report—many electronics manufacturers end their fiscal year on March 31—cites a 6.5% decline in consumer electronics sales, but an increase in operating income. A drop in demand for Sony VAIO computers and Aiwa home entertainment products contributed to a smaller sales total for the year: $41.2 billion, a substantial drop…
Lights out in Gloversville: Universal Music Group's record-pressing plant in Gloversville, NY will shut its doors on May 6, 2005. Founded in 1953 as part of the Brunswick Radio Corporation of America, the plant (and the parent corporation) were acquired in 1962 by Decca, which was itself merged into MCA—and later, UMG, now part of Vivendi Universal.
Interestingly, a UMG spokesperson said that the company will continue to sell LPs, but declined to reveal where they will be manufactured, according to www.themusicangle.com's (and Stereophile's) Michael Fremer.
Anybody at home at…