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Stranger Than Fiction Department . . .

From Music Technologies, Inc. comes the announcement that the Virtuoso Violin, the world's first computer-controlled violin, debuted last week in Menlo Park, California.

This acoustic instrument produces sound by moving a bow across a violin, just as a traditional instrument does, but human hands never touch bow or instrument; instead, both are controlled completely by a built-in microcontroller circuit.

The unique, patented technology of the Virtuoso Violin makes it a complement to QRS's Pianomation system, a computer-controlled "self-playing" piano featured at Hollywood's Magic…

Philips Announces New Chips for CD Players

Last week, Philips Semiconductors announced the CD10 chipset, which the company describes as the world's first two-chip solution to deliver CD-RW (compact disc, re-writeable) compatibility for CD audio players. According to Philips, one chip provides a data amplifier and laser supply circuit, while the other is the digital servo, decoder, and DAC. As a result, Philips claims that the new chipset allows designers to build audio players that can read all forms of CDs without an increase in component count.

Philips' Charles Limonard explains that "many CD players cannot play discs recorded…

Retail Sales Sluggish

Electronics retailers typically depend on the winter holiday shopping season to boost their year-end bottom lines. The hoped-for buying surge apparently hasn't happened in 2002, since Best Buy and Circuit City are both projecting slow sales.

North America's #1 and #2 electronics chains, respectively, both companies have seen profits hampered by competition from discounters. A December 18 report from Bloomberg News noted that both companies have slashed prices on upscale products and have begun offering free financing to compete with discounters such as Target and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,…

Added to the Archives This Week

Audiophiles have more than just piles of equipment and music to wrestle with in their quest for audio ecstasy. The listening room often colors a system's performance as much as any component in the chain. Tom Norton decided it was time to examine the subject, writing, "although the perfect room does not exist, there are things that can be done to make the most of even an admittedly difficult situation." See his report in "Enough Room?"

John Atkinson struggles with potrzebie and sound in his brain tickler "The Puzzle of Perception." Learn about phantom imaging and JA's problems…

Digital Downloads Go Legit

Visitors to the Listen.com website will find a headline on the home page: "Your Guide to MP3 and More." MP3 recordings, while a big hit with young music fans, have not been a favorite of the music business. The key to Listen.com's financial future as a download site is likely whatever ends up falling under "and more."

Last week, "and more" clearly became the focus for Listen.com when the company announced that all five major record labels (actually four, with EMI folding into Warner) have invested in their business. The old adage "Keep your friends close and your (potential) enemies…

Added to the Archives This Week

Taking the measure of the Chord Electronics DAC64 D/A processor, John Atkinson finds nice things can come in strange packages. "Such is the pace of development in digital technology these days that it is hard not to become convinced that digital playback is a solved problem." But, as JA discovers, not all solutions are identical.

The mere existence of the Theta Digital Intrepid 5-channel power amplifier startled Kalman Rubinson, who had no idea the company even made such a beast. But after a brief exposure, Rubinson starts to understand the potential in such an innovative design.

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New NARM Report Outlines the Future of Digital Distribution

According to a report just released by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), Digital distribution—particularly streaming technology—will seriously disrupt the music industry, but has the potential to "benefit all segments of the business if companies can leverage their traditional strengths and create compelling consumer value propositions."

The new study, entitled "Creating Industry Value from Digital Music Distribution," focused on the three technologies at the heart of the distribution shift: file sharing, downloading, and streaming. NARM says that the insights and…

NAB Appeals Web Royalty Ruling

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has initiated its planned appeal of a ruling by the Librarian of Congress that establishes a royalty rate for all Webcasters, including traditional radio stations that stream their programming on the Internet.

The NAB has long maintained that its exemption from royalties due to copyright holders for over-the-air broadcasts should extend to Internet audio as well. (Commercial broadcasters in the US pay royalties to songwriters and composers through organizations such as BMI and ASCAP, rather than directly to copyright holders.) A US district…

Wadia Auction Postponed for Two Weeks

The public auction of the assets of Wadia Digital Corporation has been postponed for at least two weeks, according to an employee of the Minneapolis law firm Siegel, Brill, Greupner, Duffy & Foster, P.A., which is handling the liquidation.

According to the employee, the sale is a "bulk auction—one lot, all or nothing" affair, intended to sell the company intact, despite implications in the original public notice (reproduced below) that individual finished goods might be available. No Wadia audio products are available, and interested audiophiles should not call the law firm, which was…

Added to the Archives This Week

Any audiophile who stumbles onto one of the more cantankerous audio newsgroups ("wreck audio opinion," anyone?) may wonder what has happened to the modern breed of audiophiles. One suspects that religious wars pale when compared to how some audio pundits jostle against each other! But over the years, there has always been a wide variety of opinion. For a perspective written decades ago that still holds true today, we present J. Gordon Holt's classic "Why Hi-Fi Experts Disagree."

Next, we bring Web readers part one in a three-part series that attempts to reveal how Stereophile's audio…