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Apple in the Sauce

Apple Computer is riding a wave that shows no sign of breaking.

On March 6, the Cupertino, CA–based computer pioneer celebrated its highest stock price in over three years, closing at $26.75/share on the Nasdaq exchange, an increase of 25% since January 1, buoyed by the popularity of Apple's iPod portable music player and the company's iTunes downloadable music service, and by an unconfirmed rumor of a takeover bid by Sony Corporation.

In February, Apple reported that it had received 100,000 preorders for the new iPod mini. The $250 player went on sale February 20, but some customers…

Added to the Archives This Week

John Atkinson finishes his survey of pricey floor-standing speakers with a review of the Dynaudio Confidence C4 loudspeaker. JA notes that, "despite its $16,000/pair price, the C4 has much in common with its cost-no-object cousins in Dynaudio's Evidence line."

Next, Robert J. Reina tries the Polk Audio LSi7 loudspeaker, which "just scrapes the $1000/pair ceiling of my self-imposed 'affordable speaker' price bracket." As Reina discovers, "Life is full of trade-offs, especially among affordable speaker designs."

Analog fanatic that he is, Michael Fremer is always searching for the…

50 Classical Music Videos to be Released on DVD

Classical music fans will be happy to hear that Image Entertainment has announced the signing of an exclusive license agreement with England's Reiner Moritz Associates (RMA) that will see the company releasing 50 classical-music programs on DVD in the coming year. In addition to the classical performance programming, Image will also release some of RMA's special-interest fare, featuring such luminaries as Marilyn Horne, Maria Callas, David Hockney, Jackson Pollock, and Margot Fonteyn.

Among the RMA works that Image plans to release on DVD are a production of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin…

Kazaa's Plan to Pay Artists

Internet audio file-sharing service Kazaa is the music industry's pariah—and it wants artists to get paid for their work.

Kazaa has teamed up with telecommunications giant Verizon to propose a system of compulsory Internet copyright licenses that could generate as much as $2 billion annually from Internet service providers alone. Proceeds from the licenses could be used to compensate performers and songwriters who currently get nothing for the sales of their creations by music industry-backed commercial sites pressplay and MusicNet.

"We're proposing the idea of a copyright compulsory…

Sales of Audio Products Remain Hot through the Summer

According to the latest figures from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the month of August showed positive gains in the overall factory sales of audio products to dealers. The CEA reports that sales for the month rose six percent compared to the same period last year, resulting in year-to-date sales of $5.3 billion, an 11.2% rise over last year.

The CEA says that even though sales of home receivers dipped slightly in August (six percent), other categories within separate home audio components experienced double-digit growth. Within this sector, the CEA reveals that CD equipment…

Nova Audio's CES Display to Offer Rare Glimpse at Mastering Gear

Almost beaten to death in the past couple of years by salesfolk, pundits, and journalists, "convergence" has been applied to the coming-together of audio and video, analog and digital, hardware and software, information and entertainment, and Democrats and Republicans. Among all these merging trends, the audiophile community rarely hears about the convergence of pro audio with the High End.

That's because so few companies have ventured outside the narrow niches of their self-defined markets. Only a couple of loudspeaker makers, such as JBL, have anything resembling a tradition of working…

Hybrid Vigor

As rules of thumb go, this one is pretty infallible: By the time we've heard about it, a trend's hippest participants will think it's on the decline. That means that mashups, or the manipulation of the musical genetic material of several different songs to create a new song, may be on their way out, because we've become infatuated with them.

The technique of blending melodies and lyrics from different—sometimes widely divergent—artists and genres is not new. It's at least as old as rock'n'roll; there were novelty hits back in the 1950s, such as Dickie Goodman's 1956 "The Flying Saucer,"…

Satellite Radio Irks NAB

Once upon a time, business competitors relied on the quality of their products and services to hang onto their shares of the market. That's the myth, at least. Increasingly, it seems they rely on regulatory and judicial intervention to stay afloat.

A request for a regulatory crackdown is the tack that US radio broadcasters are taking in response to a move into local weather and traffic reporting by satellite startups XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. Over the past couple of months, the satellite services have begun offering local weather and traffic reports…

Added to the Archives This Week

At the start of his review of the Balanced Audio Technology VK-D5 CD player, Jonathan Scull observes, "Man, has Balanced Audio Technology come a long way in a short time." Scull goes in-depth with the VK-D5 to explain just what he's found.

With the emphasis on digital components these days, a reasonably-priced phono preamp can become a critical part of a high-end system. Wes Phillips may have found true romance as he notes that the $1200 AcousTech Electronics PH-1 phono preamplifier "is a love letter to analog posted by Acoustic Sounds' Chad Kassem and high-end designer Ron Sutherland."…

Universal Music Takes Digital Distribution Plunge

Yet another major music company has joined the digital downloading stampede, in the wake of the Secure Digital Music Initiative's (SDMI) recent progress toward formulating copyright standards. On July 19, Universal Music Group announced its intention to make its titles available for downloading to the coming generation of portable audio players. New devices from Diamond Multimedia, Toshiba, and Panasonic—all expected to hit the market by the winter holiday season—will play encrypted tunes from Universal and other big labels.