search

Naxos Covers the High-Rez Bases

Some months back, a poll at the Naxos of America website asked visitors about their preferences among high-resolution and multichannel formats. At that time, Naxos had been releasing DVD-As (and DVDs) in the US, but only released SACDs elsewhere.

The poll results in this uncontrolled sample indicated a clear preference for SACD. Consequently, Naxos€™ US April releases will be available in both formats and, at least for the foreseeable future, the company will duplicate its multichannel releases in SACD and DVD-A.

The first three SACD releases, Holst's The Planets (6.110004),…

New TDK CD-RW Drive Promises High-Speed Audio Copies

How would you like to make a full 650Mb compilation CD of your favorite music in less than 10 minutes? That's what TDK is promising with its new veloCD ReWriter drive, to be shipped to dealers later this fall.

The 8432ai CD-RW burner will be priced at about $350 retail, according to advance publicity. In addition to 8x write, 4x rewrite, and 32x read speeds, the veloCD offers a 24x digital audio extraction speed—meaning a three-minute track on an ordinary CD can be converted into a WAV file and burned onto a CD-R or CD-RW in less than 10 seconds. A 200MHz or faster Pentium microprocessor…

Added to the Archives This Week

Last week, in Book Review: High Fidelity Audio/Video Systems: A Critical Guide for Owners, we ran Corey Greenberg's scathing review of an audio book that misses the mark by a wide margin. This week, in Book Review: The Complete Guide to High-End Audio, we examine a book written by erstwhile Stereophile consulting technical editor Robert Harley. He does not emerge unscathed!

Next, we bring you the final installment of John Atkinson's comprehensive three-part "Measuring Loudspeakers" series, which first emerged as a paper presented at the 103rd Audio Engineering Society Convention, in New…

iPod Lifts Apple

The iPod is being very good to Apple Computer.

Apple sold 860,000 iPods in its third fiscal quarter ended June 30, more than twice the 336,000 it sold in the same period in 2003. During the same quarter, iPods outsold Mac computers by 24,000 units, helped by improved supplies of the new iPod Mini for the US market and by the introduction of the player into the global market. Approximately 6% of iPods sold were Hewlett-Packard branded devices. Counting business done by Apple's iTunes Music Store, music products now account for 27% of the company's revenue, almost five times last year's…

Napster Wins a Round

Napster may have finally won a round in court. The Federal District judge in the music industry's ongoing case against the file-sharing service has allowed for the possibility that the plaintiffs may have abused their own copyright privileges in the launch of their online music services, MusicNet and pressplay.

On February 22, Judge Marilyn Patel of Federal District Court in Northern California wrote that she "found reason for concern" that the industry's five major labels had colluded to create a virtual monopoly of the burgeoning online music business. "If Napster is correct, these…

Last Gasp for Napster?

Last year's media darling may be this year's has-been. Napster, the music file-sharing service that shook the music industry's foundations, remains shut down after US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that it cannot resume operations until it can prove that no copyrighted songs can slip through its filter. In a closed session on Wednesday, July 11, Patel ordered Napster to stay offline until she authorizes it to do otherwise.

The 99.4% blockage rate that Napster has been able to achieve is insufficient, Patel stated. "We are approaching a system that has a zero rate of error,"…

RIAA in Two-Front War Against Aimster, Songwriters

In 1984, George Orwell's chilling tale of life in a totalitarian society, good citizens are expected to master the art of "doublethink," the ability to embrace two contradictory ideas at the same time. As evidenced by legal actions undertaken by their organization in late May, executives of the Recording Industry Association of America would make excellent role models in an Orwellian state.

Emboldened by courtroom victories over Napster, the Internet's most notorious free music service, the RIAA began action against Aimster, a service with a similar operating model. On May 24, RIAA…

JBL and L.G. Electronics Team Up

Last week, JBL Consumer Products (a unit of the Harman Consumer Systems Group) and Korea's L.G. Electronics (manufacturers of Gold Star and L.G. Electronics brand products) announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance to jointly develop and market a "broad range of new consumer electronics products." The companies say that the partnership "builds upon the respective strengths of both manufacturers" and will enable both companies to expand their offerings into areas outside their traditional product categories.

Harman's Sidney Harman explains that "the partnership of JBL and…

Music Biz Pins Hopes on DualDisc

Is there a future for high-resolution audio? Will the music industry survive as a packaged-goods business? The answer to both of these questions is "Yes, probably . . ." if the DualDisc follows test market indications and become next year's must-have entertainment format.

"Yes, probably ... . " is also the assessment of producer/engineer Elliot Mazer, who took time away from his latest project on August 6 to discuss the issue with me, thanks to an introduction from Richard Schram of Parasound. A combination product that literally bonds a CD back-to-back with a DVD, the DualDisc was test-…

Audio Sales Finish Strong in 1999

According to figures just released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), revenues from manufacturer-to-dealer sales of audio products in December 1999 totaled nearly $568 million, a 6.3% increase over the previous December. CEA reports that the strong month's sales pushed year-end revenue totals to their highest mark in four years: total audio shipment revenues in 1999 surpassed the $8 billion mark for the first time since 1995, growing by 2% over 1998.

In the Separate Components category, the figures reveal that home speaker revenues increased by 17% in December. The highlight…