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George Harrison, the youngest Beatle, and the least comfortable with the band's renown, died November 29 at 58, following a battle with cancer. Harrison, one of rock's most distinctive guitarists, was also a songwriter and singer of the first water. It could be said that it was his misfortune to be the third songwriter in a band that featured the two most significant tunesmiths of his era. On the other hand, without Harrison's unique, exquisitely tasteful, musically wide-ranging guitar playing—which, in its consistent submission to the requirements of the individual songs, rarely drew…
Forget the SACD/DVD-Audio format wars, a more interesting (and potentially more devastating to consumers) battle is brewing among companies racing to add copy protection technology and other restrictions to compact discs.
Macrovision revealed in July that its SafeAudio process was being secretly deployed in tests in California (see previous), and in August, SunnComm announced that it had reached an agreement with Sonopress of Germany for implementation of its MediaCloQ technology in Sonopress' manufacturing facilities located all over Europe.
Now the developer of the Cactus Data…
Editor's Note: Stereophile's new release, Bravo!, is available for order through the Recordings page of this website.
In a perfect world, the conditions for capturing a live musical performance on tape would be under the control of the recording engineer. But rarely do these conditions exist in real life, as Stereophile's John Atkinson discovered back in July and August of 1998 while recording the 1998 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Atkinson had used his favorite audiophile microphone placements on Stereophile's three previous recordings of the Festival, but found that option…
He's got his own bonds on Wall Street, houses all over the world, a fashion-model wife, and more wealth than any other rock star to date. But what he really wanted was his own Internet Service Provider. As a result, David Bowie goes online September 1 with the first rock-star-based ISP: BowieNet.
According to the new company, UltraStar Internet Services, the official announcement of the launch was to coincide with the release of the EMI Records compilation The Best of David Bowie, 1974/1979 on August 23. However, the CD, which contains details of the online service, was prematurely…
Day one of the Home Entertainment Show is always set aside for the press (and "the industry," which is an apparently elastic term meaning "everybody else"), but this year it seems as though there's more press than ever. Every press conference—and there was a steady stream of them—was standing room only and the halls were already thronged with showgoers. It looks like HE2005 is already a hit.
The day started with a Samsung event, designed to announce an alliance between the Korean electronics manufacturer and the X-Box division of Microsoft Corp. to "elevate gaming to the next level…
Recognizing that high-end audio is anything but plug'n'play, Jonathan Scull examines the details of getting the best from alternating current in "Fines Tunes" #8. As Jonathan writes: "Bill Gates would have you believe we live in a plug'n'play world. Apple has proselytized same since day one. But I'm here to tell you it just isn't so for high-end audio."
Next, we go back a few years to the dawn of CD and bring you J. Gordon Holt's legendary review of the Sony CDP-101. JGH comments: "We all know that digital must have problems, right? Right. . . . What I can say is that the worst…
It's a brave group of souls who run today's audiophile music labels. Sane business minds would likely deem it foolhardy to start a new specialty label these days, but sometimes one's passion for music overrides the rational impulse to try something a little bit more secure (like perhaps an Internet company?).
Such is the case with start-up Pure Audiophile, which is releasing its first LPs this month. The two-disc set is called Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane and features vocalist Karrin Allyson with James Williams on piano, John Patitucci on acoustic bass, Lewis Nash on drums, and Bob…
The US economy took a severe downturn last year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, and this year has been hit by the stock market's decline in the wake of the accounting scandal–fueled collapse of Enron and WorldCom, Inc. Electronics retailers have ridden out the slump fairly well, buoyed by a consumer trend toward "cocooning," or putting their disposable income into their homes. For most retailers, the popularity of DVD and home theater has offset diminishing sales of stand-alone audio.
But even with the continuing growth of DVD and digital video—on September 5, the…
San Francisco, California will open its Golden Gates to welcome the Home Entertainment 2003 Show, June 5-8, 2003. The event will take place at the Westin-St. Francis Hotel in the heart of downtown San Francisco. HE2003 marks the fourth time this event has been held in San Francisco. Previous events were held in 1989, 1993, and in 1997.
Open to the public, the four-day Show will dedicate its first day, June 5, exclusively to members of the trade and press to allow exhibitors to meet one-on-one with retailers, distributors, and the media. The Show officially opens to the public on Friday…
Last week, Xing Technology Corporation announced its sponsorship of the First Annual MP3 Summit. In a statement, the company urged music-industry executives to discuss copyright issues, technical standards, and music distribution, and to participate in developing the future of MP3.
The MP3 Summit, organized by MP3.com, takes place on July 2, 1998 in San Diego. Participants are expected to include representatives from A&M, ASCAP, BMI, Geffen Records, RIAA, and others.
MPEG Layer 3, or MP3, is an audio compression standard that allows tracks from an audio CD to be compressed into…