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Roxio Pouring All into Napster

Received wisdom has it that putting all your eggs in one basket isn't a good business plan, but that's exactly what Roxio, Inc. intends to do with its Napster online music service.

On August 9, Santa Clara, CA–based Roxio announced the sale of its software division to Sonic Solutions of Novato, CA for $80 million. The deal will divest Roxio of its popular CD and DVD recording, authoring, and photo and video editing application products including Easy Media Creator, PhotoSuite, VideoWave, Easy DVD Copy, and Toast.

Terms of the transaction provide Roxio with $70 million in cash and…

Hi-Rez Resources

Many audiophiles eager to try their new high-resolution disc players have been disappointed to discover skimpy offerings of Super Audio CDs and DVD-A recordings at their local music marts. Fortunately, several online sources stock such discs, and are constantly updating their inventories.

Artegra is a great source for jazz and folk music. The site features recent releases by the Minneapolis-based Chris Lomheim Trio, including The Bridge, a collection of jazz favorites recorded using "tube and ribbon mics, Millennia Media preamps, Meitner converters, and DSD editing with the Sony Sonoma."…

Jitter in, jitter out...

For years, there has been concern in the high-end audio press about the effects of jitter on digital audio. Manufacturers spend countless design hours measuring jitter and trying to minimize its influence on the sound of their products.

Although the digital data on a CD can be shown to be an exact copy of the studio master and is rarely corrupted by a CD player, the timing of the datastream coming off the disc can get a little sloppy, hence the term jitter. These small timing errors can then disturb the digital-to-analog conversion process, resulting in noticeable and measurable changes…

A Future of Digital Audio Watermarking and SDMI?

According to a report released last week by Cahners In-Stat Group, a high-tech market research firm, the market for personal digital music players using audio compression technologies will experience a tremendous increase in growth through the next several years. Nearly $800 million in player sales are expected in 2003, spurred largely by widespread Internet access. The report also states that products in this segment will initially focus on downloading technologies like MP3, and over the next 12 months consumers should expect to see more features integrated into the players such as FM…

Rotel Debuts DVD-A Player, Yamaha Announces High Capacity CD Recorder

Analog and digital audio technologies should complement rather than oppose each other. That's Rotel's philosophy with its new RDV-1080 DVD-Audio player. Combining the best of Rotel's expertise in both realms, the RDV-1080 offers "stunning audio quality," according to Rotel general manager Michael Bartlett. "The RDV-1080 is Rotel's answer to those who have asked for a DVD-A player that focuses our Balanced Design engineering approach on the unique challenges of this exciting new format," Bartlett said. "Even though it handles the most advanced format today, DVD-A, the RDV-1080 is…

John Marks starts free newsletter, <I>John Marks Recommends</I>

Record producer and critic John Marks, whose writing has appeared from time to time in Stereophile—his March "As We See It" triggered a deluge of letters—has started John Marks Recommends, a free e-mail newsletter on music and the arts. "Talking about my own work will be the exception rather than the rule," says Marks. "I tell people about great recordings, books, and videos, recipes, and an occasional wine recommendation."

Marks describes his newsletter, now ten issues old, as concise, text-only (no bulky HTML), family-friendly, and positive in tone. The first issues have included a…

Sidney Stockton Smith (1923-2000)

Sidney Smith, revered audio engineer and a founding father of the modern audio industry, passed away on October 25, 2000 after a battle with cancer. He was 77. Sid, a family man, left a loving wife, Marilyn, three caring daughters, Jennie, Pattie, and Laura, and two grandchildren.

To say that every decision in Sid's life was informed by his relationship to music would be no exaggeration. He was drawn to his wife because of their mutual love of music. He worked in audio, sang leading roles in professional opera troupes around New York, built his church a pipe organ, rebuilt its carillon…

Audio Sales Not So Grim After All?

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is reporting that factory-to-dealer sales of audio equipment posted strong gains in October, rising by 8% over last October's sales figures and eclipsing the $1 billion mark for the first time since 1995. The CEA says that growth occurred in all segments of the audio market except portable audio, sales of which remained consistent with last year's levels.

The CEA also reports that sales of aftermarket autosound products continued their year-long upward trend, up 30% over last October and topping $211 million. The industry organization points out…

Who's Your CE Hero?

If you work in the consumer electronics industry and would like to see your personal CE hero rewarded, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) would like to hear from you. The CEA announced last week that it is seeking nominations from its members, the press and other industry professionals for the 2002 class of inductees into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.

The CEA says that the Hall of Fame is intended to recognize consumer technology pioneers, founders, and inventors who have made significant industry contributions. Past inductees include Ray Dolby, "the inventor who took the…

Added to the Archives This Week

Markus Sauer is in a ponderous audio mood: "When several listeners each play music they like on the system, their reaction should be more uniform. But it isn't. What irks me is that, while we seem to be able to agree pretty well on how a system sounds, there seems to be no consistency of emotional reaction to this sound . . . " Sauer works through this troubling aspect of being an audiophile in "God is in the Nuances." "This journal has seen a number of thoughtful ruminations on what it is that attracts us to music or to a given audio component, and how we should describe that attraction…