Lehmann's Norbert Lehmann says that its previous distributor, Audio Advancements, wanted to put more emphasis on its own specialty retail operations rather than distribution and marketing of products for others, and will…
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Lehmann audio has carved out a small niche for itself in the analog market with the Black Cube phono preamp (first noted by Michael Fremer in the October 1998 issue of Stereophile). The company now hopes to reach a wider audience in the US and Canada for the Black Cube and the rest of its products with a new distribution arrangement between itself and Hudson Audio Imports.
Barry Willis remembers well the British invasion: "Really Big Hi-Fi came to live with me for a couple of months this past spring in the form of a pair of Tannoy Churchill loudspeakers." After a challenging delivery, Willis wrestles the Tannoys into place and files his report. Victory at last?
Next, Paul Messenger makes a careful appraisal of the Naim NBL loudspeaker. As Messenger writes, "My enthusiasm for Naim speakers has long been tempered by a feeling that mechanical aspects of the design are given priority over acoustics and styling." But as Messenger finds, things are decidedly…
The last week of July was a busy one for music industry attorneys, and by some measure a sucessful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording Industry Association of America won a round in its fight against Napster, a San Mateo, CA-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 Friday, July 28…
Citing the potential danger of "collective dominance" of the music business, European Commission members have nixed the proposed merger of American media conglomerate Time Warner and British music-industry powerhouse EMI. The $20 billion joint venture may still have some small chance at a future, provided the companies make further concessions to allay fears of monopolistic control of music prices in Europe.
Such concessions do not appear likely, however, in view of compromises Time Warner has already made to clear the way for its $127 billion merger with America Online, the world's…
One would think the last thing the music industry needs right now is to further alienate its customers who are still buying discs. But that is just what the record labels are doing by secretly experimenting with technology that restricts how discs are used, says a new report.
Stereophile's John Atkinson wrote in his October "As We See It," Selling the Benefits, that, if the record labels feel compelled to remove the "fair use" and "portability" benefits that music buyers currently enjoy, then those same customers may no longer feel compelled to buy new discs.
GartnerG2's new report…
Mastering engineer Denny Purcell let out a long sigh. "Does anyone in this room really believe that any of this is going to do any good?" he asked. Of the eight or nine people—each with decades of experience in the music and/or audio industries—hanging out at Georgetown Masters Studios in Nashville for SDMI's Phase II listening tests, no one said "Yes." The consensus: The watermarking issue will probably be dead and forgotten within a year.
Even those who believe that the music industry has legitimate justification for trying to develop some method of protecting its products have…
Don't smirk, but a lot of audiophiles, including this writer and our esteemed editor John Atkinson, spend a considerable amount of time listening to music on their computers, especially at work. In fact, the results from our recent online poll about computers and listening habits indicate that at least 60% of our readers listen this way as well, with half of those using their PCs for music playback "quite often."
High-end audio equipment designer Ron Sutherland says he, too, found himself listening to his office PC often enough that he started to tinker with the audio possibilities. "When…
CEDIA, Monte Carlo Game Room, and Audio Video Interiors, Home Theater, Stereophile Guide to Home Theater, and Stereophile magazines challenge you to "Get in the Game" as they host this year’s Elf Foundation Charity Raffle and Blackjack Tournament at CEDIA Expo 2002.
Raffle tickets are available at www.ElfSystems.org. You could win one of many great prizes, including a Runco CL-700 video projector ($10,000 retail), a Sonance InCeiling home theater speaker system ($3000 retail), and a Yamaha RX-Z1 receiver ($4500 retail). Other prizes include a Lutron Car Visor Package, a Faroudja NR-300…
Forget SACD vs DVD-Audio or even DualDisc. DRM, or digital rights management, has become the biggest audio format issue this year, and will likely continue to be for the next several years. At stake is the future of all consumer interactions with, and uses of, copyrighted digital media.
The folks who control content (record labels, movie studios) continue to struggle with hardware and technology companies (Intel, Microsoft, Sony, Apple, etc) over which form of DRM must be included in next-generation products before content will be licensed for new services.
For now, consumers are…
CBGB, the legendary Bowery club frequently cited as the birthplace of America's punk movement, is the latest in a growing list of urban nightclubs getting priced out of the neighborhoods they helped create. According to a February 11 article in The Village Voice, CBGB's lease will end in August, and its landlord wants to see the club's monthly rent increase from $20,000 to $40,000.
That's not unreasonable in a neighborhood where new retail space rents for $55/square foot, but CBGB owner Hilly Krystal points out that the monthly nut, not to mention his $80,000 yearly liability insurance,…