Thank goodness, the recordings are here, in abundance. On them we find proof that, from the end of World War II through the mid-1950s, Giuseppe di Stefano was the finest native Italian operatic tenor to emerge since Beniamino Gigli (1890–1957). On…
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How could he?, they seem to say. In obituary after obituary, one reads how tenor Guiseppe di Stefano squandered his voice. Too much smoking, too much drinking, too much shouting at late-night parties, they declare. It's almost as though opera lovers feel betrayed, unable to forgive an artist who abused such glorious gifts so early in his career.
In January 2008, Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Senior Intellectual Property attorney, Fred von Lohmann filed an amicus brief in Atlantic v. Howell, a case that hinged on the Recording Industry of America Association's (RIAA) contention that offering files on a P2P sharing network was in and of itself evidence of copyright violations, whether or not it could prove the files were ever downloaded by others.
That argument is called "making available" and several Federal Judges and the Supreme Court have rejected it, although Judge Michael Davis did accept it in Capitol v. Thomas.…
Another of the great ones is gone. Norman Smith had been a refrigeration engineer, but at 36, he decided to apply for an entry-level position as a recording technician at EMI in the UK. EMI had a strict caste system at the time and technical staff (the "white coats") were considered a rank below that of producers and even of balance engineers, who were allowed to sit in the mastering room. By 1962, Smith was promoted to balance engineer and was paired with George Martin for the first Beatles recordings. As balance engineer, he chose the microphones and recording equipment for each session and…
We get letters department: Here at Stereophile, we talk to people in the high-end audio industry all the time, and we frequently get fascinating emails from movers and shakers within the industry. This week we received one that got us thinking about outsourcing manufacturing and how it could affect high-end consumers.
David Smith, a speaker designer who has put in time designing for JBL, KEF, Meridian, McIntosh, Snell, a/d/s, Infinity, and, most recently, PSB, wrote to tell us that he'd left PSB at the end of 2007. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the job left him: Lenbrook-owned…
UK newspaper The Telegraph reported March 3 that Sir Paul McCartney has signed a $6 million deal to release the Beatles catalog to iTunes for downloading. While The Independent and the Daily Mail have also reported the same thing, there has been no confirmation from Apple, EMI, McCartney, surviving Beatle Ringo Starr, or the families of deceased members John Lennon or George Harrison.
Information Week has published that "some news outlets have reported that iTunes and representatives for the Beatles have denied the validity of the reports," without citing said reports.
Despite…
If you watch mainstream TV, you've probably seen it: The American Express Plum Card ad that features catalog/online analog retailer MusicDirect. Filmed in December, with little advance notice, the ad debuted on February 19, and is expected to run for several months.
American Express released the Plum Card in November 2007, targeting it at small business with expenses of $5000 or more each month.
Needless to say, no one at MusicDirect is crying over the greatest amount of free exposure both the company and the analog resurgence have received. "To see a half million dollars worth of…
The Home Entertainment Show, promoted by Stereophile, Ultimate AV, and Home Theater magazines, successfully showed off the best in high-end audio and home theater to enthusiasts from 2001 through 2007. However, following its acquisition of the magazines in August 2007, Source Interlink Media decided not to promote the Home Entertainment Show in 2008. Instead, Stereophile is partnering with the Festival Son & Image, to be held in Montreal, Canada, Thursday April 3 through Sunday, April 6. (The first day is for trade and press only.)
"The endorsement of Stereophile is a real blessing…
Sanford "Sandy" Berlin died on March 11 at his home in Santa Monica, California. He was 80 and had suffered from cancer. Born in 1927, he would have been 81 on April 10. During a long and highly successful career in audio management, Berlin held top positions at companies ranging from Harman/Kardon and JBL to Madrigal and Revel. He entered the industry in the 1960s, after brokering Harman/Kardon, then owned by General Instruments, back to its founder, Sidney Harman, who subsequently hired him and put him in charge of H/K. When Harman's firm, then called Jervis Corporation, acquired JBL in…
"I thought starting an audiophile record label was hard," Chesky Records co-founder Norman Chesky told Stereophile. "That was nothing compared to this. We've spent three years developing HDtracks."
In that time, Chesky and his brother David acquired servers, hired staffs of coders and website developers, negotiated with independent record labels, and created thousands of Web pages of information.
HDtracks has now "soft launched" for PC and Mac, and it's impressive. There's no digital rights management (DRM) and downloads of CD-sourced material can be purchased as full-resolution…
On March 24, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division stated that, "after thorough and careful review" (translation: more than one year) Sirius Satellite Radio's $5 billion offer to purchase XM Satellite Radio "is not likely to harm consumers."
Actually, the complete statement went into great detail, but the pertinent section concerned the affect of the merger on competition in the retail channel: "Because XM and Sirius would no longer compete with one another in the retail channel following the merger, the Division examined what alternatives, if any, were available to consumers…