Memorex, one of the largest suppliers of CD-R blank media to the retail market, revealed last week a number of reasons that it says are responsible for inevitable CD-R price increases expected later in 2001. Along with the traditional excuses, such as…
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One argument for the record industry's disappointing sales last year is a combination of high prices for official CD releases coupled with cheap prices for computer-based CD recorders and CD-R blanks. It doesn't look like retail CD prices will be coming down anytime soon, but luckily for the music business, CD-R prices are going up.
Disc piracy is a profitable but increasingly risky business, with bootlegging-related shootings and armed robberies on the rise. Modern pirates have begun to imitate their sea-going ancestors, using force to acquire assets and territory.
On Tuesday, November 20, police in New York City reported the death of Guinean immigrant Ablia Diallo, who was killed in a robbery of a Manhattan office filled with counterfeit CDs and DVDs, including copies of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and 8 Mile, two recently-released commercial films.
The incident hasn't been linked to the July…
We live in a world of strife. Among the many organizations working to change this regrettable fact are the Committee of 100 for Tibet (C100) and the Dalai Lama Foundation (DLF), which together are curating and producing a large-scale art exhibition that will have its official debut at UCLA's Fowler Museum in June 2006. A preview show of The Missing Peace: The Dalai Lama Portrait Project will take place at the Cantor Center for Arts at Stanford University in September 2005, to coincide with a visit to that institution by the Dalai Lama, exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.
After…
The 2nd Annual Southern California Hi-Fi Swap takes place on Sunday, February 22, 9am-1pm, at the Sequoia Athletic Club and Conference Center, 7530 Orangethorpe Avenue in Buena Park, one block north of Knotts Berry Farm and the 91 freeway on the corner of Beach and Orangethorpe.
Lots of vintage tube gear and tubes, high-end, etc. Free drawing for a pair of $250 item courtesy of Tek Line. Dr. Bruce Edgar will demo his 35Hz subwoofer horn, round horn, and TAD driver, and 75Hz midbass horn, on single-ended tube gear from Electra Print.
There will also be a major record/CD show next…
A recent report from Jupiter Communications claims that by the year 2002, fully 55% of the US population and 32% of European households will be browsing the Internet. Not only will this change the way poeple gather information for everything from fish food to concert schedules, it will also profoundly affect the way they shop.
What this means for the high-end audio equipment business is not entirely clear, since few companies embrace any form of distribution not tied to protected territories and hands-on support. There have been some exceptions, with both Audio Advisor and now Carver…
Writing 30 years ago, in the November, 1971 issue, J. Gordon Holt tried to anticipate the cries of Sellout!? as Stereophile began taking its first ads from dealers. Holt wrote, "Before you throw your hands up in horror . . . bear with us for another couple of paragraphs while we explain why this decision on our part need not prompt you to cancel your subscription immediately."
A few years later, in 1978, Holt explained why Stereophile could finally say We Did It!. JGH wrote "High Fidelity and Stereo Review are still trying to conceal from their subscribers the fact that some…
Two years after they were first announced, DVD-Audio discs may finally be on their way from major labels.
In mid-August, Warner Brothers Records announced the release of Paul Simon's You're the One in the new format. Originally released last year as a two-channel CD, the material for the new disc has been remastered in the six-channel Advanced Resolution Surround Sound format. The DVD-A is compatible with Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 decoders, or can be played back as a high-resolution two-channel recording, according to the Warner Brothers statement.
Music lovers with CD players only…
Time to yank out the old oxygen-free crystal interconnects and gaze into audio's future for 1999. Now that www.stereophile.com has a year under its online belt, we should be able to read the sonic omens with greater resolution, or at least confine our mistakes to minor stumbles. First, we'll see how our prognostications for 1998 panned out, and spin them a little to tune in 1999. We'll add reader predictions at the bottom. Got your own predictions? Send 'em in!
From 1998:
1) DVD-Audio standard will finally be set---but major record labels won't care.
Or:
1a) DVD-Audio standard…
A year after introducing the Super Audio Compact Disc player to upscale audiophiles, Sony Corporation has decided it is time to make the technology available to a wider audience. On May 17, Sony announced that its third-generation SACD player will be launched in Japan in June at approximately $730 US (¥80,000). The company's current SACD players, which debuted last fall, list at $3200 and $5000.
The new machine follows the acclaimed SCD-1 and SCD-777ES, which introduced SACD to the audio world. No model name or number was mentioned in the announcement of the new player, which, following…
In an effort to move their businesses into cyberspace, record labels and audio content distributors are still experimenting with their online formulas. Key to the new economic models for selling music over the Net is this question: Would you rather pay a monthly subscription fee to download music, or pay for music track by track? According to market researcher Gartner Group, sites that plan to sell music via the subscription model should seriously reconsider.
Gartner's P.J. McNealy says that "One of the things that Napster has shown is that a majority of people aren't downloading albums,…