A percussionist who was adept at both drums and piano, Hampton was the first major jazz musician to master the vibraphone, an electronic instrument based on the marimba and the xylophone, an instrument he had played as a student. His "flamboyant mastery" of the vibes, in the words of the New York…
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Music fans are mourning the passing of swing era giant Lionel Hampton. The vibraphonist, band leader, and multi-instrumentalist died August 31 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan of complications from age and a recent heart attack, according to his manager Phil Leshin. Hampton was 94.
In Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, the evil overlord's favorite torture was to introduce carnivorous worms into the ear canals of his prisoners. No one who saw the film can forget the agony of the victims, who gradually went insane as the worms ate through their brains.
Khan's hideous little creatures are not unlike the annoying snippets of pop songs that get lodged in your head and won't go away—so much so that German music fans have adopted the term "ohrwurm" (earworm) to describe the phenomenon.
Recently a Dartmouth research team applied the tools of science to this universal malady…
The last week of July was a busy one for music-industry attorneys—and, by some measures, a successful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won a round in its fight against Napster, a San Mateo, California–based software company that enables the sharing of MP3 music files over the Internet. On that day, in a US Federal court in San Francisco, Judge Marilyn Patel decreed that the widespread sharing of music using Napster was a form of wholesale copyright violation, and ordered the service shut down effective…
Music lovers who availed themselves of MP3.com's uploading-archiving-and-accessing services are about to become the next target market for the music industry. Nearing the end of protracted litigation brought against it by the music industry's "Big Five," the online music venture has announced a marketing service that will promote new commercial recordings directly to its users through e-mails. The recordings will be on labels under the control of MP3.com's opponents in the year-long copyright wrangle.
The first sample to go out to MP3.com users will be "Free," a song by the rock band Vast…
Analog playback equipment, the high art of 20th century audio, will be the theme of the "Analog Ballroom" in the Regent Parlor on the 2nd Floor of the New York Hilton during Home Entertainment 2001.
Show-goers will have the opportunity to see exquisite examples of equipment from European, Japanese, and American manufacturers, including Aesthetix, Avid, Basis, Koetsu, Musical Surroundings, Rega, Transfiguration, and others—many of the analog world's elite, all in one room. The display will celebrate more than 50 years of refinements in turntable, tonearm, and cartridge designs.
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Pure technology developments don't often have an audiophile angle, but a February 9 announcement from InPhase Technologies caught our attention.
The Longmont, CO–based data storage specialist is now shipping what it calls the "first blue laser holographic media," which it claims is capable of storing 14 hours of high-definition video or 1500 hours of audio on a single disc. Developed with financial aid from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Tapestry HDS5000 (presumably, "HDS" stands for "high density storage") is intended for use in what InPhase calls "holographic…
Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group could soon be one.
On November 6, in the first of what may be several such consolidations in the music industry, the two giants announced their intention to merge. Should the deal win regulatory approval, the combined entity would be managed by two former television executives, with Sony's Andrew Lack serving as chief executive officer and BMG's Rolf Schmidt-Holz serving as chairman of the board of directors. Lack joined Sony Music last year after a long stint as an executive with NBC television. In his few months at the helm, Lack…
Last week, Philips Electronics and Sony Corporation announced the completion of Version 1.0 of the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) format specification. According to a statement, the format specification will be released to licensees early this month to allow hardware manufacturers and software providers to begin preparing products for launch in the coming months.
"We are very pleased to be announcing version 1.0 of the Super Audio CD specification," said Wally Heijnemans, Director of standards R&D within Philips System Standards & Licensing. "Achieving this milestone allows…
American fans of Jadis products take note: Pierre Gabriel Acoustic recently announced that it has acquired exclusive distribution rights to Jadis Electronics in the USA. Jadis is based in Villedubert, France and manufactures tube-based audio electronics.
Based in Québec, Canada, Pierre Gabriel Acoustic was established in 1990 and has distributed both Jadis and Gryphon in Canada for several years. The company also manufactures and distributes its own line of high-end loudspeakers and silver-wire interconnects.
As a result of the new agreement, PGA says, it has recently relocated to…
Michael Fremer heard that the Alesis MasterLink ML-9600 Hard Disk/CD-R Recorder "can sound better than all but the absolute top-drawer analog," and, of course, had to investigate. Mikey 'splains why audiophiles should take note of a machine generally used as a mastering tool by the recording industry.
"I must admit, right from the outset, that I find reviewing electronic components harder than reviewing loudspeakers; the faults are less immediately obvious," says JA as he is about to take on the Mark Levinson No.26 preamplifier and No.20 monoblock power amplifier. JA reveals what, if any…