The suit was filed in a New York federal court and concerns, among other issues, the distinction between music licenses and music sales. Sony has been paying the ABB and Cheap Trick according to the terms of their long-term contracts, which predate the downloading phenomenon. According to the AP, that means the label deducts costs such as packaging, restocking, and breakage, even though such…
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On Friday, April 29, AP reported that Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers Band were suing Sony Music over the record label's payment for music downloads through Napster and the iTunes Music Service.
The rumored economic recovery may not be simply spin and hype, if recent reports from the consumer electronics industry are any indication.
On January 28, Harman International Industries, Inc. announced record sales and earnings for its second fiscal quarter, ended December 31, 2003. The Washington, DC and Northridge, CA-based electronics firm posted a 24% increase in net sales for the quarter, a total of $691.6 million compared to $560.0 million during the same period last year. Net income was up more than twice that percentage—a 50% increase over the same period last year, $41.5 million…
James Bongiorno needs your help. The legendary electronics designer, whose pioneering work with fully complementary solid-state amplifiers has become part of engineering's standard lexicon, is battling liver cancer.
Among the many products attributed to him are the Dynaco Dyna 400; the SAE Mk.III CM; the Great American Sound Ampzilla and Ampzilla II; the GAS Thaedra preamp; and various Sumo products, including the Power, the Gold (the first high-power class-A amplifier), and the Andromeda. Bongiorno holds several patents, including one for class-A amplification and another for FM tuner…
Michael Fremer almost grasps upsampling when he looks into the dCS Verdi SACD transport, Purcell D/D converter, and Elgar Plus D/A converter. MF notes, "Explaining what you get for your $34k is somewhat easier than explaining upsampling, but due to the dCS gear's enormous flexibility and multitude of features, it's not that much easier."
What do Michael Jordan and Lamm audio components have in common? Paul Bolin explains in his review of the Lamm Industries M2.1 monoblock power amplifier. According to Bolin, "The world of audio is analogous to the world of sports," and Lamm possesses…
Record producer and Stereophile contributor John Marks has informed us that classical violinist Arturo Delmoni has agreed to throw his considerable talent behind the Audio Charity Auction, organized in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed more than 6000 people.
Delmoni will perform at the home of the winning bidder. The auction has been added to features on the charity site. Proceeds will go to the NYC Uniformed Firefighter's Association Widows' and Orphans' Fund; travel and expenses for Delmoni are not included in the prize. "…
MP3 players are going to hit the market in waves this fall, and manufacturers will be trying hard to make their products stand out from the pack. Several companies are bringing out combi MP3/CD portables, including consumer-electronics newcomer Pine Technology USA, of Fremont, California. Pine has long experience in the manufacture of motherboards, modems, and other computer components. The company is now shipping its $189 D'Music SM-320V MP3 portable. Its $219 model SM-320 includes an FM tuner. Both players have 32Mb of embedded solid-state memory and will accept a 32Mb SmartMedia card…
When Sony introduced the first Super Audio CD (SACD) player, the SCD-1 (see previous report and Jonathan Scull's forthcoming review in the November 1999 Stereophile), audiophiles who heard it were impressed with its performance, but wondered if its $5000 price tag would keep it out of the market for a while. Last week, Sony announced their second SACD player, the SCD-777ES, to appear in October at the slightly more wallet-friendly price of $3500.
According to Sony, the new player incorporates most of the key technologies and fundamental "pure audio" capabilities of what the company…
It's cheating to say that the best sound I've heard at the English Show was at Martin Colloms' house on Saturday night---cheating the same way it is when someone asks that question and I (or some other reviewer) piously responds that some live music event ranks above any exhibitor. Martin, of course, has an advantage over anyone at the Show. He set up his own listening room and had all the time he needed to boot. Even so, his system, consisting of a Krell KRS-25 and FPB 650Ms and Wilson Audio WITT IIs, was astoundingly fast, rhythmic, and dynamic.
Martin wrote the book on pace, rhythm,…
As anyone who reads this website is all too aware, these days legislative matters increasingly encroach upon audiophiles' ability to experience uncompromised high fidelity. Like it or not, political decisions can and do have an impact on what we listen to and how we are able to manipulate our music after we have purchased it.
One organization that John Atkinson, Jon Iverson, and I have come to rely upon—both for information and for fighting the good fight—is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), with its senior staff attorney on fair-use and intellectual property issues, Fred von…
The digital audio genie was released two decades ago, before the music industry imagined any need to restrict how music files on a compact disc might be used. The last few years, however, have seen myriad attempts to redesign the digital audio bottle, and then shove the genie back in—with limited success.
The latest in a string of CD restriction technologies from SunnComm was announced last week when the company revealed that its upcoming version of MediaMax, Version 5, will include what it calls "on-the-fly" DRM (digital rights management) encoding.
SunnComm claims that by encoding…