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More Audio Statistics Indicate Growing Markets

Specialty audio manufacturers did better than expected in 1997, with factory sales as high as $1.4 billion, as reported last week. More figures from the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association indicate that the High End's good fortune is part of a bigger trend.

A sales spurt in February helped boost year-to-date sales of all audio products to $1.01 billion. Sales volume for home audio systems (i.e., rack systems) rose by 3.4%, to $115 million. Year-to-date for home components totals $217 million, according to CEMA.

The top 100 retailers in the US racked up $65.8 billion in…

Canadian Audio Report

Is it the low exhibitor rates? The excuse to visit Montreal, perhaps North America's most cosmopolitan city? The efficiency and charm of organizer Marie-Christine Prin and her assistants? Whatever the reason(s), Montreal's Festival Son & Image has become a real success story, attracting an ever-increasing array of exhibitors and audiophiles from far and wide. Last year, the Festival spilled over from the downtown Delta Hotel to the Four Points Sheraton across the street; this year, there were exhibits in the Holiday Inn next door as well.

The Montreal show may have changed its moniker…

Hard-Disk Audio

Hard-disk–based audio systems having been gaining traction in recent months, with a half-dozen consumer electronics companies announcing or selling products. These new components model what savvy computer users have been hacking together for years—a software-controlled music library based on hundreds or thousands of CD or MP3 files stored on a hard disk.

No surprise then that computer manufacturers would want a piece of the action. Making good on its initial threat to jump into the CE market along with Dell and Compaq, Hewlett-Packard announced last week that its new "Internet-ready" (the…

Tighter CD Control?

At one time the music industry was known as a cultural force. It could excite the public and change the course of history, even prodding some governments to attempt censorship. These days, the record labels themselves are acting more and more like a police force, looking for ways to restrict and control how music consumers behave.

The new SACD and DVD-Audio formats, with built-in watermarking and other copying and use impediments were supposed to do the trick. But with sluggish consumer acceptance of the new formats, labels are hedging their bets and looking for more ways to restrict how…

Dueling Downloads

Only a few short years ago, Napster quickly took root to show the world how Internet-based audio file-trading was where music distribution's future growth might run wild. But the record labels would have none of it and just as swiftly took a legal chainsaw to Napster's trunk, laying it waste and leaving plenty of room for Kazaa and other unsanctioned services to sprout like weeds.

And then Apple and the record labels mutated their own variety of downloading seed and iTunes sprang to life like the proverbial beanstalk in an otherwise dying musical garden. Overnight, the labels' attitudes…

RIAA Adopts New Digital Strategy

When going up against the consumer electronics industry, the Recording Industry Association of America has no problem keeping the upstarts in their place. In fact, with recent battles over DAT and CD-R, they appear able to kill or mortally wound entire formats at will. But fighting within the computer universe is a whole new story, as recently proved by the RIAA's stumble with Diamond Multimedia and their portable MP3 device (see related stories).

With their rump still stinging from the Rio/MP3 setback, the RIAA is ready to fight fire with fire. Adopting the stance of aggressive tech…

Meridian on DualDisc

Meridian Audio Ltd. is the latest electronics maker to weigh in on the continuing DualDisc controversy.

DualDiscs combine CD content on one side with a DVD on the other, making them slightly thicker than ordinary optical discs. Many DualDiscs have DVD-Audio content in one or more of the layers on the DVD side. DVD-A uses Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) compression technology to squeeze as much data as possible onto the discs without compromising playback quality.

Several manufacturers have issued warnings that the hybrid discs may not play in their equipment or could cause problems…

Added to the Archives This Week

Kalman Rubinson had tried to get his hands on the Revel Performa F30 loudspeakers back in January 1999, but was thwarted until later in the year, when J-10 decided to send them his way. Kal was clearly excited about these speakers, and explains in detail exactly why.

As Sam Tellig has often reported of late, integrated amplifiers have become hot high-end items. But from Mark Levinson (the company) . . . ? Can the venerable high-end firm's first integrated compare with its fabled separates? Larry Greenhill takes a close look at the Mark Levinson No.383 integrated amplifier and lets us…

Added to the Archives This Week

In his The Fifth Element #2, John Marks discusses in detail how to use common household items to render some audiophile magic. Marks explains, Aall you need is a very long piece of string, a tape measure, two bits of masking tape, a quantity of small self-adhesive removable note papers, and later, perhaps, a trip to the fabric store."

Last week, we ran John Atkinson's As We See It about surround abuse. This week, we have Kalman Rubinson exploring Surround Sound & Cognitive Dissonance. Rubinson writes, "Listening to multichannel music with the new SACD and DVD-Audio players has…

DVD Forum to Start Verification of DVD-Audio Format Products

The DVD Forum announced July 28 that it will start verification services for products based on the DVD-Audio format (see previous article) at some of its authorized DVD Format Verification Laboratories starting September 1999. According to the Forum, format verification is conducted to establish the conformity of DVD products with DVD formats created by the DVD Forum, and allows manufacturers of successfully tested products to use DVD logos as proof of conformity.

In addition to the existing formats of DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, and DVD-R, the DVD Forum says it will offer verification…