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Harman Signs License Agreements with New Transducers Limited

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…

Engineer/Producer Tom Dowd Dies

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…

Added to the Archives This Week

Back in June of 1992, Lewis Lipnick auditioned one of the era's benchmark products, the Cello Palette Preamplifier. LL comments, "The Palette Preamplifier gives the listener a glimpse of what performers experience every day on stage: total immersion in the music."

Back in May 2000, Brian Damkroger assembled the Bright Star Audio Rack of Gibraltar 2 equipment rack and put his components on its shelves. As BD notes, "Bright Star Audio's Rack of Gibraltar equipment racks are exceptional cases whose forms truly do follow their functions."

Next, we have John Marks reviewing the recently…

A Chink in the Armor or a Glimmer of False Hope?

As first reported April 8 in EETimes, Sony has made known its plans for the first generation of Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) players, to be released in Japan this May. For the last several months, Sony has been suggesting that the SACD format would be going head to head with the competing DVD-Audio format, despite overtures from the DVD-Audio Working Group to join in a single all-encompassing specification.

But at the last Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, several companies hinted at players that would play all formats. Prototypes shown by Yamaha and Denon led some to…

Added to the Archives This Week

"How much power do you really need? How much power can you actually use? What's necessary, and what's icing on the cake? And does anyone really need 1000Wpc?" Jonathan Scull takes the Boulder 2050 monoblock amplifier into the listening chamber to confront these and other pressing audio dilemmas.

Next, Paul Bolin listens to the Acoustic Zen interconnects, AC, and speaker cables remarking, "If the devil is in the details, then Beelzebub has taken up residence in the collections of cables we use to connect our components."

Robert Deutsch fires up the Balanced Audio Technology VK-5…

Downloads Evolve on Campus

One of the most fascinating aspects of the digital age is that clever students—or sometimes, clever dropouts—can undo the work of teams of PhD engineers.

Among the latest thorns in the side of the music industry are homegrown twists on Apple Computer's iTunes program that let users copy songs or song lists from each others' computers, as well as stream entire music libraries throughout local area networks, such as in college dormitories. So-called companion programs, such as "MyTunes" and "GetTunes," circumvent anti-copying code in iTunes software so that users can share music with each…

Audio for DVD Seminar

It's no secret that Dolby Laboratories doesn't aim its audio compression technologies at the high-end consumer audio market. After all, Dolby excels at finding ways to get maximum performance out of limited-bandwidth environments such as the audio cassette, or the space alloted for 5.1-channel soundtracks on DVDs.

At the recent Audio for DVD Seminar held at company headquarters in San Francisco, the folks from Dolby often referred to audiophiles as "them"---as in "us and them." Nonetheless, Dolby seems sympathic to the concerns of tweaks troubled by any compression schemes being used to…

Gary Warzin RIP

Among the terrible news coming out of the Gulf states these past few days, we heard the sad news that Gary Warzin, one of the co-founders, with Tony Gregory, of high-end distribution company Audiophile Systems, had died on Saturday August 27 at just 56. Audiophile Systems had grown to prominence in the 1970s and '80s marketing Linn components in the US, and after Linn had set up their own distribution, had worked hard to establish the Arcam and dCS brands in the US. We reproduce below the email we received from Audiophile Systems, telling us of the news, but I'd like to offer my own memory of…

Buy Cables and Feed the Hungry

Once again, audiophiles can help themselves and others at the same time by participating in The Cable Company's seventh annual "Summer Against Hunger" campaign. The Cable Company, and several suppliers (listed below) have set up a program by which up to 10% of the Cable Company's August sales are donated to CARE and the International Rescue Committee, with contributions to be used to assist the worldwide disaster relief efforts of those humanitarian organizations.

The Cable Company is donating 5% of its total sales and participating manufacturers are matching this with their own 5%…

Paradigm and Sonic Frontiers Tie the Knot

The Paradigm Group announced today that they have entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of Sonic Frontiers Inc., of Oakville, Ontario, as the first step in a comprehensive restructuring plan that will lead to an expansion of Sonic Frontiers.

"It's a done deal---the papers were signed today at 1:30---we're off to the races," stated Chris Johnson, President of Sonic Frontiers.

As reported this past March, Sonic Frontiers had announced an initial deal with The Lenbrook Group that was never finalized and was called off by early June. Chris Johnson explains: "Sonic Frontiers…