Stereophile will be blogging live from the Show and the magazine's team of editors and writers, including John Marks, Wes Phillips, Robert…
search
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—public admission starts on Friday at 11am. More than 120 brands will be demonstrated in rooms on 11 floors of the Sheraton Centre hotel in downtown Montreal, and the Show's keynote speech is being given by Monster Cable's Noel Lee at 10am on the trade day, Thursday April 3.
D&M Holdings, Inc., the Japanese consortium that owns Denon, Snell, Boston Acoustics, McIntosh, Escient, and Marantz, is apparently on the marketing block. Rumors to that effect have been circulating since mid-March, although the company's website, in a press release dated 04/15/08, coyly says only: "D&M Holdings, Inc. notes that recent press reports concerning the potential sale of D&M shares is not based on any information provided by the company."
Not precisely a firm denial.
Speculation on who has entered a bidding war for D&M has been heated, possibly over-…
Our industry has again honored its own. The Consumer Electronics Association, sponsors of the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), has announced 12 new inductees to the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame. Awards will be presented October 21 at a special Hall of Fame Dinner, scheduled for the Four Seasons in Las Vegas as part of the CEA's annual fall Industry Forum.
Cindy Stevens, senior director of communications at CEA and the editor of Vision magazine, has overseen the Hall of Fame program since its inception in 2000. The first year, she explains, 50 pioneers and…
Microsoft made several announcements this week: one promises Live Mesh, a service that would "connect and bring devices together . . . to work in concert"; the other admits that Microsoft promises are not to be trusted.
Live Mesh is a combination of "a platform and a service," says Microsoft observer Mary Jo Foley, designed to be a "software plus services platform" that will synchronize computers and other electronic devices (personal digital players (PDPs), phones, DVRs, game consoles, etc) with the vast Interwebs. At the moment, however, Microsoft has not announced precisely how Live…
Has the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable really been around for 35 years? Yes, Ivor Tiefenbrun MBE, founder and Chairman of Linn Products, asserts. Moreover, Tiefenbrun asserts, the revolutionary aspect of that 'table was not simply that it worked "simply better," but that it was designed to be "modular, upgradeable, and expandable in accordance with our continuous improvement philosophy. That is what 'simply better' means. It is not an assertive statement of superiority but an aspirational motto defining our objective as simplifying and improving everything that we do."
On April 22, Linn…
At 9am on May 14, Meridian Audio announced that Walter Schofield will be assuming the position of President of Meridian America at the company's Atlanta office on June 1. Jeff Dean will run Meridian's newly established Hollywood office.
Schofield was previously vice-president of sales and marketing at Mark Levinson, a division of Harman Specialty Group, which restructured its operations in January 2008, closing facilities in Bedford, MA and Billerica, MA, and consolidating operations to its Northridge, CA campus.
Jeff Dean comes to Meridian from the entertainment industry, having…
Due to an error in laying out the June issue of the magazine, the following announcements were omitted from the June issue's "Industry Update Calendar" section:
FLORIDA
• Friday, May 16, 6–10pm: Krell and Audio Visions South will team up with Modern Times Gallery (1962 Main St., Sarasota) to host The Art of Sound, an art opening and product demonstration featuring an all-Krell system. For more info, call (813) 876-5236.
ILLINOIS
• Saturday–Sunday, May 17–18: Essential Audio (Barrington) will host Darren Censullo of Avatar Acoustics for an open-house seminar on system-…
After a four-year hiatus, the Vacuum State of the Art Conference and Show has been resurrected. Scheduled for next weekend, May 24–26, at the Hilton Hotel in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland, Oregon, VSAC owes its renewal to audio enthusiasts and software company owners Carolyn S. and Michael Kilfoil, who have taken over from founders Dan and Eileen Schmalle.
One of VSAC's foci is on do-it-yourself (DIY) builders and designers. With the exception of such well-known companies as Cardas, deHavilland, and Audio Note UK, many of the show's commercial exhibitors and…
We have written about HDTracks.com previously, but that was before the site went public. This morning David Chesky notified Stereophile that it is offering, for a limited time, a free "HDTracks Ultimate Download Experience."
I fall for that "free" term all the time on the Internet, only to discover that, in order to get that "free," I have to divulge information I'm not comfortable giving—like my credit card info. David Chesky explained that the Download Experience isn't like that. "All you have to do is register your email address and you can download the eight tracks and get a 20%…
Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. announced May 19 that it was acquiring online classical retailer ArkivMusic, LLC for $3 million in cash at closing and three annual payments of $500,000.
ArkivMusic has been one of the recording industry's few success stories, the result of its core staff's passion for classical music and its realization that the old model of shipping product all over the country looking for customers was grossly inefficient. ArkivMusic not only utilized the Internet's efficiencies, but it created a unique "on-demand" manufacturing model wherein CDs are created after the…