Kenwood's "Here2Anywhere" model KTC-H2A1 and Audiovox's "Satellite Radio Shuttle" (SRS), both described as "plug and play" devices, will arrive at dealers during the last week of May. The new receivers have a feature called S-Seek that notifies listeners "when their favorite songs are playing on any…
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Sirius Satellite Radio may be positioned to make the next great leap forward. In mid-May, Kenwood and Audiovox announced the first transportable receivers, which will let Sirius listeners enjoy the service wherever they go—home, office, boat, beach, etc—not only in the comfort of their cars.
CD audio recorders are becoming affordable and more available. Philips' CDR880 (reviewed by Wes Phillips in the current issue of Stereophile) will be in dealers' showrooms soon at a suggested retail price of $649. Pioneer will also have an inexpensive recorder on the market---the PD-R555RW, which will reportedly sell for $599. These two---and others that will no doubt follow---are welcome relief from the four-figure machines that have dominated the recordable audio CD niche.
Recording enthusiasts on a budget shouldn't overlook offerings from the computer industry, where CD "burners," as…
An Internet startup being organized by Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood and auctioneer Ted Owen will offer John Lennon's 30-year-old Steinway piano for auction some time in July. The piano is now on display in The Beatles Story museum in Liverpool and will remain there until October 9, which would have been Lennon's 60th birthday.
The wood-finished upright Steinway was built at the Hamburg factory and purchased by Lennon in 1970, and is the same instrument on which he composed his hit song "Imagine." It could bring as much as $1.6 million at auction, making it the most expensive item…
Dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, the music industry may finally be settling into an uneasy acceptance that its market and business model have changed. Only two months after the successful launch of Apple's iTunes Music Store, Billboard magazine announced that it would begin accounting for downloads in its weekly music rankings.
On July 2, the popular music journal began to include data from downloads in its Billboard music rankings. Based on sales information gathered by Nielsen SoundScan, Billboard's charts have long been the standard that measured the popularity of…
MP3 audio files have quickly become the dominant format for downloading music over the Internet, and have just as quickly raised the ire of music labels and artists looking to protect their musical assets. For example, a petition signed by nearly 400 European recording artists (including Mstislav Rostropovich and Barbara Hendricks) was handed to the European Parliament last Tuesday by French composer Jean-Michel Jarre to protest lax copyright protections exacerbated by digital technology. The petition states, in part, "We want to use new digital technologies like the Internet to create and…
The Wednesday before the official start of the CES is traditionally a day devoted to press conferences and room set up and today was no different. Many mainstream companies put on dog and pony shows announcing products they think will answer the mass market's thirst for more and better—but a few high-end companies make announcements as well.
Thiel Audio had a press conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center, choosing to publicize its less well-known in-wall, on-wall, and custom-targeted speaker products to a press corps that wasn't all that aware of its high-end credentials. This made…
Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, federal law limited broadcasters to ownership of only four radio stations in any one market, and a maximum of 40 nationwide. The act loosened regulations to allow ownership of as many as eight stations in a single market, and hundreds nationally.
Although one intended purpose of the act was "to encourage competition," a wave of mergers and acquisitions followed its passage. One small broadcaster after another caved in to buyout offers, and the resulting larger companies were purchased in turn by even bigger ones.
The Federal…
Is retailing headed up or down? North America's two largest electronics retailers have reported vastly different results for the second quarter.
Best Buy, the region's largest retailer, is riding an updraft. The electronics giant doubled its net earnings in the second fiscal quarter, reaching a total of $139 million, a huge leap from the $62 million reported for the same period in 2002. Earnings from continuing operations grew more than 75%, to $140 million, up from $79 million in the second quarter last year.
The Eden Prairie, MN–based retail chain enjoyed 17% revenue growth in the…
CD recorders are the hottest ticket in audio at the moment. Philips and Marantz once dominated the category, but other manufacturers have recently jumped on board with their own versions, among them Pioneer and Harman/Kardon. Onkyo will introduce its DX-RD511 dubber later this month at the 1999 CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis. The machine is expected to arrive in stores in October—just in time for the holiday season.
The $700 twin-transport machine offers several features not found on other recorders. The DX-RD511 not only records on any type of blank CD, but its two transports can be used…
Houston's InterWeb Design has signed a joint venture agreement to bring MP3 audio to China. The three-way agreement, finalized in late February with a Chinese investment company and the Chinese government, will establish the first government-approved MP3 site in China.
Beijing Artists Online L.L.C. will launch an English-language Chinese MP3 music site similar to the popular MP3.com within 60 days, with a Chinese-language site to follow in about 120 days. The agreement stipulates that every Chinese song posted on the new site be approved by the country's Ministry of Culture, despite the…