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Sharp's 1-Bit Technology Goes Portable

Advances in technology almost always debut at the high-end and gradually filter down to mass-market products. Sharp Corporation's 1-bit digital amplification technology is no exception.

First introduced to Stereophile readers by senior contributing editor Michael Fremer in his July 2000 review of the $15,000 SM-SX100 amplifier, the technology will soon be adapted for portable audio players costing less than $300, according to a September 1 report from Tokyo.

The 1-bit technology involves an extremely high digital audio sampling rate, either the 2.8MHz rate of SACD, or its double, 5.…

Can We All Get Along?

Last week, Cirrus Logic unveiled what it is calling the world's highest-performance six- and eight-channel D/A converters, which the company says will give consumers the ability to decode high-resolution multichannel surround content at home or in the car. The converters are the latest addition to Cirrus Logic's Total-E platform group of products.

Cirrus says the CS4362 and CS4382 support both high-resolution audio formats, DVD-Audio (up to 192kHz sample rates) and Super Audio CD (Direct Stream Digital or DSD), making them the "ideal solutions for multichannel audio products such as DVD…

Outboarders Invade CES '99

Outboarders---it has a certain dark ring to it, conjuring the image of futuristic outlaws from a William Gibson sci-fi novel, or perhaps a renegade hacker cult living off-planet somewhere.

Okay, so I'm being a tad dramatic: what it really sounds like is slang for motorboats with engines hanging off their rears. But high-end audio folk know it as a term ever more frequently applied to trade-show renegades who bolt the official halls and hotels for cheaper venues during a convention.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show, long considered the key event for audio companies marketing their…

The DIY Chronicles, Part Four

Editor's Note: This is Part Four of a six-part series from reader Hervé Delétraz of Switzerland, who is chronicling the development of his DIY (do-it-yourself) audio amplifier. Part One is here, Part Two is here, and Part Three is here.

The prototype board was built in November 1999. I assembled all of the parts on a 6mm-thick aluminum plate and plugged it into the wall. Some buzzing noises for a while, then Waoum! Four devices in Heaven!

Well, the simulation was obviously working better than the real thing! I spent a few more nights—and transistors—and found some things that…

Tweeter Group Continues Expansion; Numbers up for Best Buy, Sony Electronics

Large companies may be chopping jobs by the thousands, but there are signs elsewhere that the economy is still booming. Recent figures from electronics retailers Best Buy and the Tweeter Home Entertainment Group and from Sony Electronics indicate only a partial slowdown in spending for quality audio/video gear.

Canton, MA–based Tweeter Group reported April 4 that its second-quarter revenue increased 36.8%, with same-store sales up 3.6%. The company has been expanding consistently for the past three years, acquiring successful upscale regional retailers in the mid-Atlantic states, the…

Sony Introduces Walkman with Download Capability

The Walkman is 20 years old. As part of its celebration of one of the most successful audio products in history, Sony has introduced its first personal music player with the capability of downloading music from the Internet. The new Walkman employs Sony's "memory stick" technology to store audio files as large as 32 megabytes. The latest Walkman, which was unveiled last week in Japan and New York, is expected to retail at approximately $400 and should appear in stores in January.

Prior to Sony's entry, the market for portable digital music players was predicted to grow to 6.67 million…

Radio, Radio

Traditional music radio has been taking a beating since the mid '80s, when declining audience numbers entered a ratings freefall. Reader Bard-Alan Finlan argued in his Soapbox a few weeks back that perhaps digital radio could cure the market's over-the-air terrestrial broadcast ills, if only it were implemented with adequate bandwidth and marketed correctly.

"Without a doubt, radio's future is digital," concurs Dale Mowry of Harris Broadcast. In an effort to move In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) digital radio forward, equipment manufacturer and IBOC promoter Harris says it will be launching the…

MusicNet, Pressplay Tunes Won't Travel

While audiophiles obsess about extracting another iota of resolution from our already high-rez systems and recordings, the rest of the world is going crazy for portable music.

Despite the legal shackles slapped on Napster, the MP3 format is alive and well. File-sharing continues unabated, and high-tech solid-state music players are one of the audio industry's hottest trends—a trend so hot that computer companies like Apple have eagerly joined the fray with devices like the iPod, a player no bigger than a cellular telephone, but capable of storing a thousand songs. If the experience of the…

Added to the Archives This Week

After the bungled launch last year of DVD-Audio, where is a digital audiophile to turn? John Atklinson provides some answers in "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution," from the April 2000 Stereophile. "So while the DVD Forum argues about increasingly arcane aspects of the DVD-Audio medium, and John Lennon's record-industry 'men in suits' retreat further into their lawyer-built fortresses, I have bypassed all they have to offer . . . "

Continuing our series of reviews of Thiel speakers, Brian Damkroger listens intently to the Thiel CS2.3 loudspeaker: "The Thiel CS2.3 and Magnepan MG1.6/QR are the…

Industry Roundup

Audio retail revival: Electronics retailers throughout the US are ramping up their commitment to audio separates, according to a June 21 report by Joseph Palenchar in TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics). Palenchar describes the new emphasis on audio components as a response to declining margins on "home theater in a box" (HtiB) systems. Through April of this year, factory-to-dealer audio component sales rose 29.8% to $344.6 million, with April sales up 41.9%, hitting a four-year high of $86.9 million.

Audio sales aren't growing as a result of new interest in music, however, but as…