A flood devastated VSR's facility in a partially renovated old industrial building in Watertown on Sunday, January 24. Unseasonably warm weather had melted accumulated snow, causing runoff from a landfill mound over a hazardous waste dump nearby. Water and mud---possibly contaminated…
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Accidents and disasters have no sense of good timing, and when they strike have a way of fouling even the most promising love affairs. Case in point: loudspeaker manufacturer Von Schweikert Research and the small town of Watertown (pop. 30,000) in northern New York, about three hours' drive from Toronto.
It wasn't too long ago that rock band Pearl Jam set their lawyers after the dozens of independent websites pre-releasing pirated versions of the band's album Yield, hoping to curtail its availability on the Internet. How times change. On June 4, any consumer with access to the Internet and a RealNetworks G2 player will have the opportunity to visit the world's "ultimate listening posts" when the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album, Californication, and Def Leppard's Euphoria, will be available in their entireties for streaming on the Web---four days prior to their official June 8 release.
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In his review of the VTL MB750 monoblock power amplifier, Brian Damkroger asks: "How much power do you really need? What does it do for you, anyway?" His answer may surprise you. Also added to the Archives this week is Damkroger's in-depth history lesson and interview with the man behind the company, "Making Tubes User-Friendly: Luke Manley of VTL."
Next up, Stereophile senior editor Jonathan Scull gets his hands on the Linn Klimax 500 Solo monoblock power amplifier. Always looking for the real story, J-10 asks Linn's Ivor Tiefenbrun, "You're such a cheeky guy. Why'd you call it the…
John Gourlay, Stereophile's publisher since 1998, left the company at the beginning of November. John had been a valued collaborator and the moving force behind the launch of the 2004 Stereophile Buyer's Guide (see related story). We all wish him well in his future career.
Joining Stereophile as its publisher (as well as publisher of our sister magazines Home Theater and Stereophile Guide to Home Theater) is Jay Rosenfield. Along with the editors of the three magazines, Jay reports to the group publisher for Primedia's Home Technology and Photographic Group, VP Irwin Kornfield.
A…
For the tenth consecutive year, Stereophile writers and editors ferret out those components that have proved capable of giving musical pleasure beyond the formal review period and have wrapped them all up as The 2001 Products of the Year. The envelope please.
John Atkinson spent months hearing voices as he helped put together the latest CD to exhibit his engineering acumen: Cantus. Both JA and Wes Phillips document the genesis of the sessions and subsequent release of choral music featuring traditional material from around the world arranged for unaccompanied male voice. Destined to…
The ultra-High End may be stagnant in some areas, but the rebound in mainstream consumer electronics is visible everywhere. Canton, Massachusetts-based Tweeter Home Entertainment Group has announced record results for the quarter ended September 30, 1999: an increase of 39.5%, or $74.6 million compared to $53.5 million in the same period last year. The results are similar to those posted recently by nationwide electronics chain Best Buy, which also had a record quarter. Tweeter's comparable store sales increased 5.2%, not counting results from the recently acquired Home Entertainment and…
Media conglomerates have long hedged their bets by consulting demographics experts and marketing gurus. Now, music executives have real science to bolster their sometimes unreliable instincts about what will succeed and what will fail. It's an audio analysis program called Hit Song Science (HSS).
Using a database of Billboard-charting pop hits dating back three decades, researchers at Spanish company Polyphonic Human Media Interface (PHMI) have analyzed approximately 3.5 million successful tunes for "melody, harmony, chord progression, beat, tempo, and pitch," according to an insightful…
Vinyl junkies who missed the first official Vinyl Record Day celebration last summer should mark their calendars for Saturday, August 16. On that date, the faithful will again converge in San Luis Obispo, CA's Mission Plaza to gawk at LPs, memorabilia, vintage gear, and to meet classic album cover notables.
SACD and DVD-Audio may be getting all the format news these days, but here's an interesting statistic: sales of vinyl so far this year total 661,000 units, trouncing the 234,000 units sold by DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD combined. The vinyl collectors market is also hot, and VRD's…
On February 18, Harman International Industries Inc. announced that it had signed two licensing agreements with New Transducers Limited (NXT) relating to NXT's flat-panel loudspeaker technology.
Under the first agreement, Harman acquired the exclusive rights to sublicense the UK company's NXT technology to home audio and professional audio companies based in the United States. US-based companies seeking to license the NXT technology in any of these fields will now have access only through Harman International.
The addition of the NXT technology to Harman's current intellectual…
Tom Dowd, a recording engineer and producer who created some of the greatest pop, jazz, and rock recordings of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, and who ushered in the era of multi-track tape recording and stereo playback, died Sunday, October 27 of emphysema at an assisted living center in Aventura, Florida, near Miami. He was 77.
Trained as a multi-instrumental musician, Dowd was drawn to physics and engineering at an early age. He worked on the particle accelerator at Columbia University after graduating from Stuyvesant High School at the age of 16. Two years later, during World War II, he…