Apple also announced that it shipped its one millionth iPod music player last week. Apple introduced the third generation of its portable digital audio player in April, edging out consumer electronics heavies like Sony, whose portable music players have…
search
Apple announced last week that music fans have downloaded over five million songs from its iTunes Music Store since its launch two months ago. In addition, the company reports that over 46% of the songs have been purchased as albums, and over 80% of the over 200,000 songs available on the online store have been purchased at least once.
Country music reached the peak of its popularity six years ago, when it claimed 18.7% of the recorded-music audience. Since then, it has steadily declined to its present 14.1%, according to the Recording Industry Association of America's 1998 Consumer Profile. Reasons for the decline include the increasing crossover of country stars into pop and rock styles, a phenomenon that has broadened many artists' reach and made acts like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain household names among folks who may not previously have paid much attention to country. Crossing over, unfortunately, also dilutes the…
It's been a tough couple of years for those who like to make digital copies of audio recordings. What started with SCMS copy-restriction schemes in DAT machines has quickly spilled over into current digital formats such as those proposed for DVD-Audio. But a glimmer of hope has shone through the haze.
Last month, Members of Congress Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Tom Campbell (R-CA) introduced copyright legislation that would implement the copyright treaties negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last December.
According to Gary Shapiro, Chairman of the Home…
After a May 10 announcement from the Federal Trade Commission that it had negotiated a settlement with the music industry's "Big Five" over a controversial pricing policy, enterprising private attorneys wasted little time initiating class-action lawsuits (1, 2) against them. By early August, some reports placed the number of suits nationwide at more than 100.
The minimum advertised pricing policy, or MAP, was used industry-wide in the mid-1990s, and put retailers at risk of losing co-op advertising funds from the Big Five if they promoted CDs below certain prices. The MAP scheme arose in…
Students are often described as people with more time than money. For four accused by the recording industry of being "nodes" for file sharing, the lack of money will almost certainly extend well beyond graduation day.
At the beginning of May, four students charged with massive copyright infringement settled out of court, agreeing to pay between $12,000 and $17,500 each to the Recording Industries Association of America. Terms of the deal, in which the students admitted no wrongdoing, specify that payments will be made in installments through the year 2006. The lawsuit was launched…
Jonathan Scull found himself in awe of the beautiful and ingenious construction lavished on the Boulder 1012 D/A preamplifier. "Its design and build qualities are icons to elegant engineering know-how. No screws show on the rectangular box . . .", J-10 enthuses. And as Scull finds, this D/A preamp combines both beauty and brains to create sheer audio pleasure.
Back in 1987, Lewis Lipnick offered his take on the B&W Matrix 801 Series 2 loudspeaker, which had been evolving steadily for seven years. As a special bonus for the online version of this classic review, we include a…
John Atkinson gets high with the HeadRoom Supreme headphone amplifier and reports on the results. "The quest to make the headphone listening experience more equivalent to normal speaker listening is not new," writes JA. Has the Supreme made the cut?
Wes Phillips got a brand new HeadRoom Traveler Bag. The ultimate audiophile travel accessory? Wes checks it out to see why a headphone sack could be worth over a hundred clams.
"What the hell is going on with headphones these days?!" asks Corey Greenberg after hearing the Grado SR60 headphones. Many a Stereophile scribe has sung the…
The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) will soon move into Phase II of its evaluation of digital audio watermarking, following listening tests conducted in early July at Sony's Whitfield Street Studios in London and administered by Sony VP of engineering Malcolm Davidson. A soon-to-be-published report from Paul Jessop of the International Federation of Phonograph Industries reveals that the participants in the tests—almost all of them audio-industry professionals or journalists—averaged just slightly better than 50% in their abilities to detect the watermarks.
The Whitfield Street…
Promising technology, interesting programming, and good business plans may not be enough to keep satellite radio services XM Radio and Sirius Radio aloft. Both companies are struggling with massive financial problems as they scramble to gain subscribers.
On Wednesday, November 13, XM Satellite Radio laid off 80 of its approximately 480 employees and initiated a move to more affordable programming in an attempt to contain costs. Analysts have predicted that the year-old startup, which lost $117 million in the second quarter of this year, is in danger of running out of money in early 2003…
Those who spurn audio discs with built-in restriction technologies should take note: SunnComm Technologies announced last week that its MediaMax CD-3 technology has been utilized to restrict the content on Ike and Tina Turner's new compilation CD entitled The Early Sessions.
SunnComm says the disc will contain two "sessions," noting that the regular CD tracks, restricted with its proprietary system, are called the "Red Book session." The disc will also contain a restricted "multimedia experience," referred to by SunnComm as a "second session," for playback on a PC. The company reports that…