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Harmanizing Audio

Dave McCurdy, president of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), announced last week that Dr. Sidney Harman, executive chairman of Harman International Industries, has been selected to receive EIA's prestigious Medal of Honor for 2002.

Each year, the Electronic Industries Alliance presents the EIA Medal of Honor to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the advancement of the electronics industry. The recipient is honored at EIA's Government-Industry Dinner, which is held in conjunction with EIA's annual Spring Conference.

The EIA says Harman embodies the…

Bonus DVDs Fight Piracy?

The music industry's reaction to a prolonged sales slump has been a desperate effort to create legislative and technological deterrents to force consumers to stop downloading MP3s and copying CDs.

Ludicrous proposals from Hollywood and Washington have become almost daily fare. They have been categorically denounced by civil libertarians and rejected by music fans, who have long maintained that the real answer to what ails the music business is a market solution. The music industry can't force people to buy its products, but it can package them in a way that will induce consumers to buy…

Satellite Radio Subs Jump

Now is clearly crunch time for satellite radio. In the last year alone, over one million new subscribers have been added to front-runner XM Satellite Radio's service, bringing its total to approximately 1.4 million. The company projects that it will reach a total of 2.4 million subscribers by the end of 2004, thus ensuring its survival.

XM is still facing a challenge from its second-place rival, Sirius Satellite Radio, which announced last week that it is revising upward its estimate of the number of subscribers it will garner in 2004. Although it had projected 860,000 subscribers by the…

Polk acquires financial stake in Genesis Technologies

Loudspeaker manufacturer Polk Audio announced on December 31 that it had acquired an interest in Genesis Technologies, manufacturer of both loudspeakers and digital products. Not only did Polk invest $500,000 in Genesis convertible preferred securities, it also obtained a three-year option to purchase the Colorado-based high-end audio company, which is led by three industry veterans: Arnie Nudell (co-founder of Infinity), Paul McGowan (co-founder of PS Audio), and Mark S. Schifter (co-founder of Audio Alchemy).

Commenting on the deal, Polk CEO George Klopfer observed (trying hard not to…

Industry News Roundup

One might assume that the mutually dependent businesses of electronics manufacturing and retailing would track each other in perfect unison. That's often true, but they can sometimes get wildly out of sync with each other. It's one of the great economic mysteries.

In fact, that's what happened in 2002. US retailers, having suffered through a lackluster winter holiday season, generally reported flat results for the year, having escaped disaster on the surging popularity of digital television products and home theater equipment. There were even a couple of catastrophic results—Circuit…

Added to the Archives This Week

In the latest article to appear in the Archives, Robert Harley comes right out and asks, "How many of you actually read the 'Measurements' sections of Stereophile's equipment reports and understand what's being measured, and why? I suspect that many readers skip over the technical assessment of the reviewed product and make a dash for the 'Conclusion.' "

Remain in ignorance no longer! All is revealed in one of the most important articles written on the topic to date---Harley's "Quality Lies in the Details." Harley goes through each of the CD-player and digital-processor measurements that…

Added to the Archives This Week

Jonathan Scull tackles the Pioneer DV-AX10 SACD/DVD-A/CD player, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of one of the first "universal" disc machines. Scull carefully compares the DV-AX10 to stand-alone SACD, DVD-A, and CD players to assess whether, in fact, you can have it all in one tidy package.

Also from the current February issue, Chip Stern gets up close and personal with the Arcam DiVA A85 integrated amplifier. Can a two-channel integrated that has been "primped and prepped for integration into an expanded audio-video rig" deliver the sonic goods? Stern uncovers the answer in…

Europe Gets More Protection

Maybe it's because those Yanks are so contentious, but it appears that most of the initial CD copy-protection activity is taking place in Europe (see previous). Last week, Phoenix, AZ–based SunnComm announced that it has reached an agreement in principle with Sonopress of Germany for implementation of its MediaCloQ technology in manufacturing facilities located all over Europe.

SunnComm says that this arrangement is the prelude to a more formal agreement, which includes the commitment by SunnComm for the immediate deployment of MediaCloQ technologies in the Sonopress plant located in…

Shure: E3c Better Noise Blockers

The surging popularity of portable music players has been a boon to makers of accessories for them, especially earphones. Many music fans travel for business, requiring long hours in noisy airplanes and other forms of mass transit, and earphones that offer the added benefit of blocking or reducing noise are always desirable.

But of the many models on the market, which are the best? A research project sponsored by Shure, Inc. found that the company's own E3c earphones were most effective at blocking outside noise. Employing industry standard techniques for evaluating hearing protection…

Even Better Than the Real Thing?

Widely known for its consumer electronics products and musical instruments, Yamaha actually got its start making pianos 100 years ago. To celebrate this milestone, as well as the 300th anniversary of the piano, the company is introducing its first CD player-equipped, "high-tech" player piano that, it claims, is capable of "singing" along with its piano performance.

The company's Disklavier line, first introduced in 1988 and now a $100 million/year retail business (12% of the total US piano market), is considered a high-tech update of the player piano made popular in the early 1900s.…