search

Linn Komri Turns Pro

Audiophiles know Linn as a high-end consumer electronics company, creator of such products as the legendary LP12 turntable, compact amps, preamps, and speakers, and the innovative Kivor hard-disk music server.

But Linn has also been involved with the professional audio market since 1972. It has created products and processes, including studio monitor loudspeakers, 12" tonearms, unique cutting lathe technology with automated continuous radius compensation, and the Rekursiv digital recording system.

Latest in that long list of pro audio progeny is the company's new 328A Professional…

Cutbacks at Circuit City

The continuing recession is hitting Circuit City hard.

In early February, North America's second largest electronics retailer announced sweeping cutbacks of its workforce, including the dismissal of approximately 3900 commissioned salespeople and the shuttering of 10 repair centers. Circuit City's sales force will move to an hourly wage, a measure that CEO Alan McCollough said will save the company about $130 million in payroll costs this year. The savings will help offset an expected $40 million drop in earnings caused by severance pay and "other one-time charges."

Approximately 60…

Corey Greenberg New Editor of <I>Audio</I>

Audio magazine has appeared to have been in difficulties of late, with falling circulation, advertising revenues, and issue size. The current editor-in-chief, Michael Riggs, has worked hard in the past few years to create a more appealing editorial product, since he replaced long-term editor Gene Pitts. However, an even bigger change is now taking place.

It was announced on March 4 by Hachette Filipacchi Magazines that Riggs is to be joined by Corey Greenberg in the new position of editor. Greenberg will assist Riggs (who remains editor-in-chief) in the planning of each issue's content…

US Law Applicable Worldwide?

Could American copyright law be applied outside US borders?

US District Judge Stephen Wilson believes it could. In Los Angeles, on Monday, November 25, Wilson entertained arguments by record companies and movie studios that they should be allowed to proceed with copyright-infringement suits against Sharman Networks, Ltd., the parent company of file-sharing service KaZaa. Sharman Networks is headquartered in Australia and incorporated in Vanuatu, an island in the Pacific Ocean.

Sharman Networks' attorney David Casselman told Wilson that "holding the online swapping company liable for…

Watermarking: Back to Square One?

In December, after months of conducting listening tests with audio professionals in the US, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) choose a watermarking technology from Verance Corporation for DVD-Audio copyright protection. Test results had indicated that Verance's system was the least detectable of the contenders under consideration.

The tests were administered by Sony engineering vice president Malcolm Davidson, and conducted in studios in New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville using ABX switching of time-aligned high-quality playback equipment. (I participated in one of the…

John Wright, 1939-1999

John Wright was one of the most important figures on the British hi-fi scene since the mid-1960s. His natural modesty and reticence made it easy to underestimate a working life that encompassed an unusually wide range of different roles: from inventor to speaker engineer to reviewer to businessman.

Both of his parents were music teachers, and while John himself was an accomplished pianist and organist, he developed a similar passion for the gramophone, and the challenge of reproducing the recorded music repertoire to the highest possible standards. While he both trained and practiced as a…

Panasonic Pushing DVD-Audio with Rebate and Giveaway Program

DVD-Audio is getting a big push from Panasonic this season. A promotion running from November 7, 2000 until January 31, 2001 includes rebates on the purchase of new players and free discs from a wide assortment of performing artists.

Buyers of a Panasonic DVD-A7 player will receive a $75 mail-in rebate; those who purchased a Technics DVD-A10 DVD-Audio/Video player (reviewed in the November Stereophile by Jonathan Scull) will receive rebate coupons worth $100. Those who buy "DVD-Audio Ready" Technics receivers—models SA-DA8K, SA-DA8N or SA-DA10N—on the same date will get additional $50…

Watermarked CDs?

Record labels have found that CDs with built-in restriction technologies have not worked in all CD players, have been incompatible with some computers, and have engendered considerable backlash from irate consumers. But why should that stop them?

Stealth MediaLabs announced last week that SunnComm has agreed to license its "StealthChannel" technology, designed to utilize a "hidden and virtually indestructible 'metaspace'" within compact discs. The companies say this will allow for a persistent watermark to be embedded in SunnComm's MediaMax music CD releases.

In an effort to add a…

The Great Debate...and Then Some

"Some say it dates back to 1927, when Gramophone magazine's editor thundered that electrical reproduction was a step backward in sound quality," said the promotional copy for Home Entertainment 2005's opening-day event, "The Great Debate: Subjectivism on Trial." It continued: "But whenever it started, the Great Debate between 'subjectivists,' who hear differences among audio components, and 'objectivists,' who tend to ascribe such differences to the listeners' overheated imaginations, rages just as strongly in the 21st century as it did in the 20th." On April 29 at the Manhattan Hilton,…

If You Build It, They Will Come . . .

We're still waiting to see even one official US release of DVD-Audio software, but reports are trickling in that the recording industry is nonetheless planning for the multichannel high-resolution audio landscape. The latest bit of news comes from mastering facility Future Disc Systems, which announced last week that it is now mastering DVD-Audio projects, and will soon be ready for high-resolution surround sound.

Steve Hall, chief mastering engineer at Future Disc, says that "Because the DVD process is complex, a project may be loaded and/or modified by several engineers in facilities…