And although the current number of home media server products in actual use is modest, new research from In-Stat projects that worldwide…
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While the sudden popularity of MP3 files caught many audio and music industry players by surprise, the budding home media server market is being watched closely from its inception. As defined by In-Stat/MDR, media server products are either PC-based, using an operating system such as Microsoft's Media Center Edition OS, or consumer electronics devices, like advanced set-top boxes, that offer both broadband connectivity and hard-disk-drive–based storage.
Are there differences between an American hi-fi show and the British variety? A few---the biggest is the extent to which all the real business takes place at the bar. This is true for the audio press (okay, not all that different from an American show), but it's true for manufacturers as well. After Show hours, the boozer is jammed with everybody in the business sharing a few pints, smoking, and talking shop. It's not unusual to see business rivals chatting amiably about the state of the industry---and even discussing distribution in some detail.
Yesterday evening I was doing some…
On day two of Revel's early-March press junket, Stereophile and Guide to Home Theater writers and editors were treated to a discussion and demonstration of some superb audio and video equipment at Kevin Voecks' spacious home in the San Fernando Valley. Voecks spoke at length about the extensive research his company has done on the perceived realism of reproduced sound, under the leadership of Dr. Floyd Toole.
One of the most persistent beliefs among audiophiles and speaker designers is that a loudspeaker's step response or square wave response has a significant effect on the perceived…
Investors have shown an inexplicable willingness to foot the bill for MP3.com's $53.4 million settlement with Universal Music Group. In the four days following the announcement of a settlement on Tuesday, November 13, the now fully legitimate Internet music site watched its stock surge to four times the value it had only a month before. Shares of MP3.com closed Friday, November 17 at $9.42 each, triple the per-share price on the morning of the announcement. The stock had sunk to a 52-week low of $2.50 per share on October 11.
The hysteria was fueled by the fact that MP3.com is now the…
One of the hottest audio technologies at the recent CES, as far as the general public was concerned, wasn't SACD, or DVD-Audio, or even new MP3 players. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, digital satellite radio jumped into the limelight by announcing its impending rollout this year. Two companies are poised to compete for the top spot, lining up car manufacturers and CE companies in a classic format battle that is sure to heat up by summer.
On the one hand, we have Sirius Satellite Radio, which is currently up and running with their first 100 channels of non-commercial programming…
We've all been hearing about digital television (DTV) for several months now, but a similar revolution is facing the radio industry around the world. As we reported last week, several companies and organizations have been piecing together systems to gradually replace the AM or FM stations you currently listen to (you do listen to the radio, don't you?) with digital equivalents over the next few years.
The Internet as a digital broadcast medium has also been garnering generous attention with its 1700 or so web-based stations or rebroadcasts of radio stations. But with the low bandwidth…
Telecommunications giant American Telephone and Telegraph announced March 16 that it too, now, has technology for digital music delivery. AT&T's system, called a2b music, is based on MPEG Advanced Audio Coding.
According to an AT&T press release, a2b music's audio compression technology delivers the "best-sounding music currently available through digital distribution." Highly rated by independent audio institutes including BBC Research, Canada's Communications Research Center, and NHK Science and Technical Research Labs, MPEG AAC was jointly developed by AT&T Labs, Dolby Labs…
Sam Tellig loves 'em and consistently sings their high-quality/low-buck praises as a cheapskate favorite ($6.99 per CD!). And now, classical music label Naxos of America is blazing new paths with its announcement last week that it and Liquid Audio have inked an agreement to digitally distribute downloads of selected Naxos recordings to leading retail and music web sites in the Liquid Music Network.
Naxos of America says it plans to begin offering downloads from approximately 200 titles from its extensive catalog of 2400 compact discs, with new releases added each month. The company says…
Music industry attorneys may not enjoy much of a summer vacation. The season got off to a litigious start with a flurry of lawsuits by and against record labels and music-based websites.
On June 3, a group of web-based music companies filed suit against major record labels in US District Court in San Francisco in an attempt to obtain legal sanction for business models that allow subscribers to create their own playlists. Plaintiffs include an online entertainment trade group, the Digital Media Association (DiMA), Viacom Inc.'s MTVi, Launch Media, Inc., MusicMatch, Inc., and Listen.com…
Corporate consolidation has been likened to gravity: an inexorable, hard-to-resist force of nature always lurking in the background. D&M Holdings, parent company of Denon and Marantz Japan, has clearly felt its effects, announcing last week its latest acquisition: McIntosh Laboratory.
D&M Holdings itself is the result of a merger that took place almost exactly one year ago when Marantz Japan and Denon combined operations. The seeds for that deal were sown a year earlier, in 2001, when Marantz Japan acquired the Marantz brand from Philips and established operations in Europe and…