Approximately 25 journalists—Michael Fremer and I were the Stereophile contingent—were treated to an up-close-and-personal…
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Sharp Electronics has come a long way from the household appliances and modest home entertainment products it has long been famous for. (The company's name derives from its first product, a retracting pencil.) Sharp is making a serious, prolonged push into upscale audio and video, as evidenced by the array of new models on display at a dealer and media conference held in late August at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, a hotel/golf resort north of San Diego.
Audiophiles interested in experimenting with upconverting the digital data on their CDs to higher resolutions will find a recent announcement from the Netherlands of interest. Dutch company Eximius revealed last week a new product tagged "DVD+Audio Creator" for converting CDs to either upsampled PCM or compressed MP2 files.
The company notes that its DVD+Audio format should not be confused with the already launched (at least three times by my count) DVD-Audio format. Instead, DVD+Audio is said to be compliant with the DVD-Video specification and will play on all DVD players.
According…
"Don't be shy," Jon tells me.
Not knowing that he caught my bright green stare blazing trails around the world's largest television screens, through tangerine-colored plastic walls, and over hundreds of bobbing heads just to get at the long legs of the booth girls, I have no idea of what he's talking about. I give him a look that expresses my confusion; my face is an innocent, little question mark.
"I'm sure they're not doing anything tonight," he answers.
Funny guy, this Jon Iverson, is. And perceptive, too. While Jon certainly doesn't approve of the use of long legs…
Lars is dead.
The Swedish-born Lars Fredell, who once told me that he aimed to be "the world's greatest audiophile," and probably was, died of an apparent heart attack on Friday, June 28, shortly after leaving a plane at Westchester County Airport. Medical personnel were unable to revive him. Lars was 58.
The incident bears an uncanny resemblance to the sudden death of Harvey Rosenberg last year. Harvey, too, collapsed and died following a flight. Harvey was 59.
Lars was my close friend and listening pal for nearly 15 years. He showed up on my doorstep one sunny Saturday…
It's tough to know which CDs, SACDs, and DVD-Audio discs have been restricted through watermarks or other "copy protection" techniques. This has created a thriving underground community, with websites such as Fat Chuck's devoted to sussing out the corrupted audio products and posting notification to consumers.
But what would happen if all altered products, both software and hardware, were required to carry notification to consumers that the product they were buying had restrictions built in? Would music fans shun the restricted discs and players, or would they shrug their collective…
While the DVD Consortium's Working Group 4 (WG-4) is still working on the 0.9 specification for DVD-Audio, Sony and Philips have been silently carrying on work on their Super Audio CD, the consumer implementation of Sony's DSD. The Sony/Philips disc will have two layers, one carrying normal 44.1kHz, 16-bit CD information (and thus guaranteeing backwards compatibility with existing CD players), the other carrying eight channels in DSD format (two for high-quality stereo, six for surround), plus text and/or graphics.
The press were shown Super Audio CD at London's Abbey Road Studios in late…
From the April 2004 issue, a must-read for all audiophiles: Keith Howard does the SACD and DVD-Audio math for "New Media Metrics." Using a vast collection of informative graphs, KH explores hi-rez attributes and puzzlers. "In the case of SACD, why provide a potential bandwidth in excess of 1.4MHz, only to fill more than 95% of it with quantization noise?"
From August 1999, Robert J. Reina listens to the NAD 218 THX power amplifier and explains that he's "been impressed with the character and the consistency of the NAD sonic signature: a tuneful and dimensional sonic presentation with a…
Back in the spring of 1986, I was visiting a hi-fi show in Lucerne, Switzerland. In the KEF/McIntosh/Perreaux room, I was engaged by a voluble American, who wanted to talk about the changes I was making with the English magazine Hi-Fi News. The conversation shifted to the hotel bar, then to a restaurant. The American was one Tony Federici, who at that time was distributing Perreaux gear in the US. With an education in the philosophy of science, Tony's comments were insightful and challenging. He was never at a loss for an opinion! After I moved to the US to take the editorial reins at…
Rotel's newest: Rotel is venturing into the power conditioner market with two new components developed in conjunction with APC (American Power Conversion), a company with a long history in power-protection: the $1599 RLC-1080, which offers internal battery backup, and the $499 RLC-140. Both models offer system protection against spikes, brownouts, over-voltages, and RFI noise. Both also offer protection for coaxial, telephone, and Ethernet hook ups, as well as audible warnings and text displays.
The biggest difference between the two Rotel power conditioners is the RLC-1080's internal…
Audiophiles may bemoan the convergence of computers and high-fidelity equipment, but it's a trend apparently as unstoppable as the earth's progression around the sun.
Every once in a while, however, an announcement appears to encourage hope that the computer audio experience will eventually transcend its typical limitations. Case in point: a recent press release from Dolby Labs and Intel Corporation about a cooperative effort to promote "Intel High Definition Audio," an improved PC audio experience based on Dolby surround-sound technologies.
The partners are launching a new "…