search

CES 2004: Day Three

Yesterday, we talked with Microsoft about the high-resolution audio capabilities of Windows Media. Today, we met with one of their key competitors, Real, who also promised that, as the market matures, we will be seeing more options for audiophiles.

Presently, Real's own codecs support only your basic low-rez internet formats ranging up to a proprietary lossless encoding and decoding process similar to DVD-Audio's MLP scheme, only this time applied to a CD stream. The result is a file that is typically half a normal CD's size without any compression.

Real's latest player is called the…

Added to the Archives This Week

As Michael Fremer reports, critics have universally hailed Infinity's $8k flagship Prelude MTS. But can the success of the MTS trickle down to the lower price points? For his review of the $2000/pr Infinity Intermezzo 2.6 loudspeaker, Fremer set out to determine if the more modest sibling is a "worthwhile chip off the old block or just a marketing divot."

Robert J. Reina says that JBL speakers remind him of college. But as the new JBL S38 loudspeaker demonstrates, the company has come a long way from the days when Reina spent most of his time in the "boom and sizzle JBL rooms" of his…

Industry Roundup

RIAA lawsuits continue: Each month the recording industry launches a few hundred more lawsuits against suspected file-swappers, with such tedious regularity that we could simply re-run the previous month's news with a new figure inserted. This time around, the Recording Industry Association of America announced May 24 that it had filed suit against 493 more people believed to have illegally shared music over the Internet. Known only by their screen names and IP addresses, the unnamed defendants are subscribers with Internet service providers in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia…

RCA Living Stereo SACDs: Round Four

The fourth round of RCA Red Seal Living Stereo hybrid SACD/CDs hit the literal and virtual shelves on February 7. [Kalman Rubinson wrote about the first batch here.—Ed.] Remastered from the original two- and three-channel master tapes using the DSD process, these 10 new SACDs present the material exactly as it was recorded, without equalization, filtering, or other tampering.

For the three-channel recordings, which were made with microphones placed in the left, center, and right of the hall, all three front channels of the SACD format are used. This allows audiophiles with multichannel…

Industry Update

Signal savings: Signals SuperFi, LLC did something you don't see every day: It actually lowered its price for Stereovox Reference level SEI-600 interconnects. The SEI-600 is a line-level, single-ended, single-jacket "stereo" cable. Signals has dropped the price of a 1m pair from $999.99 to $749.99 (each extra 0.5m adds $250).

The SEI-600 interconnects utilize pure silver conductors within air-articulated PTFE insulators and helically wound silver-plated copper shields. They are terminated with Stereovox's Xhadow Reference RCA connectors. "I designed the SEI-600s as an entry-point to the…

Linn's Akurate Line

If you've been hunting for loudspeakers that sound fantastic, look gorgeous, and don't require a second mortgage, Linn Products, Ltd. may have the solution.

On August 14, the UK audio company launched its new "Akurate" series of high-performance loudspeakers at Definitive Audio's sleek showroom in Seattle. (The company has more than 120 US dealers, and more than 500 worldwide, according to public relations manager Brian Morris.) Consisting of a full-range five-way column speaker (model 242), a compact 4-way minimonitor (212), a subwoofer (221), and a center channel speaker (225) the…

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

An audio system even Nero could love: Pyrotechnical effects have apparently gotten slightly out of control with Philips Consumer Electronics MX920 speaker systems, 25,500 of which have been recalled due to fire hazards from overheating voice coils. Four such incidents have been reported since the MX920 went on sale in June 1997. No one has been injured, and property damage has been limited to one scorched rug.

Philips is cooperating with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which urged the recall after consumers reported that the speakers could burst into flames. The systems are…

Quarterly Figures Down for Big Retailers; Tweeter Adds Sound Advice

The first fiscal quarter was a slow one for major electronics retailers. Eden Prairie, MN–based Best Buy reported a 3.1% drop in comparable-store sales, attributing the slowdown to diminished demand for personal computers. That figure is for stores open a year or longer; Best Buy's total sales for the quarter rose 25% to $3.69 billion from $2.96 billion, thanks to 11 new stores and the addition of the Musicland Group of music stores, which Best Buy acquired earlier this year. Although demand for hardware such as digital cameras, DVD players, and high-definition television sets was "brisk…

Hi-Rez Blaster

Following Apple Computer's lead in bringing high-resolution audio to the computing environment, Creative Technology announced last week several audio products intended to facilitate DVD-Audio playback via personal computer. The company is also offering suggestions for making a PC quiet enough for use in a dedictated listening system.

At a press conference in Singapore, the company unveiled its new Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound cards, which Creative claims will allow the millions of PC users who have DVD-ROM drives on their PCs to decode DVD-Audio discs at sample rates up to 24-bit/192kHz.…

Hertsens On Portables

Tyll Hertsens is on a mission. He strives to transform the ugly duckling bleat of portable audio into music that sings to an audiophile's heart.

This is not an easy task.

But then, Hertsens is no ordinary audio missionary, and he has succeeded in building his business, HeadRoom, into a modest empire by following his simple dictum: "Do a good job selling headphones, and make killer amps to go along with them."

With the appearance of an iPod review in Stereophile, and portable music players gaining in use and sophistication, it seemed like an appropriate time to sound Hertsens out…