In a statement, Mission says it will take advantage of its "longstanding heritage in loudspeaker design, while also expanding into new territory with unique, high-performance audio and video products that utilize today's most advanced technologies." John Atkinson…
search
British loudspeaker manufacturer Mission has announced a major marketing push into North America with the launch of its new distribution arm, Mission U.S.A. The company, founded in 1977 and noted for using one of the first polypropylene-cone drivers in 1978, had been distributing its products in the US through Denon Canada.
Every month, we get dozens of press releases about new developments in the audio industry. Many of them, detailing minor changes in product design, company policy, or personnel, are less than newsworthy. A disturbing number are written in an odd variant of English—PR Speak—In Which Every Word Is Capitalized And Quotes Are Used "For Emphasis." Others clearly have been penned by folks not fully in command of the language: Many are thus improved features of great desire and will invite happiness to include in next model.
Extracting the facts—we assume that's what they are—to include in news…
There's no denying that traffic at the Alexis Park is down from last year. But in spite of this, high-end audio continues to evolve and impress. There were plenty of two-channel audio systems to go around, including vinyl front-ends, while multichannel and video made a modest showing. It's hard enough to get decent sound out of two speakers in a hotel demo room, let alone five or six.
Braving the multichannel waters, however, were companies like Bel Canto Design, which had its new PRE6 multichannel balanced analog preamplifier on display. The new preamp is expected to ship in a couple…
Internet traffic doubles every 100 days, according to some statistics. This growth has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of online shopping---a phenomenon that has had a significant impact on retailers. Independent bookstores, for example, have been squeezed not only by the expansion of large-scale operations like Barnes & Noble, but also by the popularity of Internet discounters like Amazon.com and Borders.com. Online sales of recorded music by both record clubs and start-up resellers have put a dent in the bottom lines of many mass-market music stores---although not a…
A company unknown outside the broadcast industry is poised to become the next big player in radio. Entercom Communications Corp, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, has moved to the head of the pack in the race to buy 31 FM and 15 AM stations from Sinclair Broadcasting Corporation. The $824.5 million purchase is being financed in part by a public stock offering that Entercom floated last January.
Another stock offering will help seal the deal, giving Entercom a total of 88 stations nationwide and making it the fifth-largest radio broadcaster in the US. Entercom has been aggressively…
The FM radio spectrum could soon get a lot more crowded, thanks to rules recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission. New stations with broadcasting power of between 1W and 100W will be cropping up soon in communities all over the country, provided they don't interfere with existing stations, and provided they remain strictly noncommercial.
The move to empower community radio has been an ongoing controversy at the agency, which for several years has been fighting radio "pirates" in big cities and small towns. The availability of inexpensive audio and broadcasting equipment…
There's no question that restricted-use or copy-protected CDs are finding their way onto retailer shelves and into unsuspecting consumer hands—often with frustrating results. What is in doubt in many consumers' minds is how to recognize a restricted-use disc before purchase.
The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) and the Global Entertainment Retail Alliance (GERA) have now announced their support for guidelines for labeling of copy-controlled discs as released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). NARM has been outspoken in the past,…
On April 14, Krell Industries invited the New York–based audio press to its first-ever American demonstration of its Evolution electronics separates, at Sound By Singer. In a surprise move, the company also debuted a complete "re-imagining" of its flagship loudspeaker, the LAT-1: the $55,000/pair LAT-1000. "We set out to improve the LAT-1," Krell CEO Dan D’Agostino said, "and in the end, probably the only parts we retained from the original design were the top and bottom panels. The LAT-1000 is essentially a completely new design—although it does retain the same footprint as the LAT-1, since…
Universal Music Group (UMG) may go on the auction block to help bail out debt-ridden Vivendi Universal. On March 6, Vivendi announced a record loss of $25.4 billion (€23.3 billion) for the 2002 fiscal year. The biggest loss in French corporate history followed a staggering $14.9 billion (€13.6 billion) loss for 2001.
The major part—$20.2 billion (€18.4 billion)—of the loss was in write-downs of acquired businesses, including $7.1 billion (€6.5 billion) for Vivendi Universal Entertainment, $5.8 billion (€5.3 billion) for Universal Music Group (UMG), and $5.9 billion (€5.4 billion) for…
The object of the audio game, as Stereophile founder J. Gordon Holt put it, is "to re-create original acoustic events as accurately as possible." That goal has driven engineers to extraordinary lengths, improving every link in the recording and playback chain. Most such improvements are incremental, but their cumulative effect is the sometimes astounding level of sonic realism available today from even moderately priced equipment.
But rarely does a truly new concept pop up on audio's radar screen. A new tweeter material or power-supply capacitor isn't earthshaking news, and incremental…