UltraAnalog, the company Dick founded in 1988 with Rémy Fourré to bring to market the high-oversampling 20-bit A/D converter designed in the late 1980s by Robert Adams, was a major player in the high-end digital audio arena, with Accuphase, Audio Research, PS Audio, Sonic Frontiers, and Madrigal/Mark Levinson using its 20-bit and later 24-bit D/A modules with considerable sonic success. The company also developed the low-jitter I2S-Enhanced…
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We were saddened to learn of the passing of Richard "Dick" Powers on April 5, 2006, in Fremont, CA after a short battle with cancer. Dick was just 53.
Things seemed to be going well for SACD at the 112th AES Convention, held May 10-13 in Munich. The official news, announced at a Sony-Philips press conference, was that one million consumer SACD players have been sold so far. One large Dutch audio retailer even reported to me that they now sold more SACD players than CD players. The prognosis for SACD is total worldwide sales of 6 million players (in whatever form) in 2003 and 13 million in 2004.
As for making the discs, Sony has three pressing plants (in Japan, the US, and Europe), but as yet no facility for making hybrid SACD/CD discs…
John Atkinson points out that "a much-touted benefit of DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD is that these new media can store digital audio data extending one or more octaves higher in frequency response than the capabilities of the CD." But is this a difference that makes a difference? Atkinson examines the mounting pile of data in What's Going On Up There? Is there recorded life above 20k? The answer may surprise you.
Jonathan Scull writes, "I wasn't raised a McIntosh lad. My dad used Fisher, Bogen, Leak, and Ampex tubed electronics. So while I knew that many audiophiles hold tubed McIntosh…
Paul Bolin revisits planet Halcro to review the company's dm10 preamplifier. As PB notes, "After designing an amplifier that turned much of the audio world on its head, Halcro's head honcho, Bruce Candy, turned his attention to developing a preamplifier to match what he'd already wrought."
Next, Art Dudley takes a spin with the EAR 890 power amplifier and tries to conjure a tale about its sound. "The EAR 890 confounds reviewers: It's a straightforward thing, and while its design and execution are not without ingenuity, the EAR 890 lacks even such basics as hand-rolled capacitors or exotic…
In the December 2005 issue of the UK magazine Hi-Fi Plus, editor Roy Gregory announces that Absolute Multimedia, Inc., publisher of The Absolute Sound and The Perfect Vision magazines, has purchased the British audio journal.
Gregory states, "Hi-Fi Plus...will remain unchanged, unchanged that is apart from a few developments to content which we've been itching to make. ...With AMI's financial muscle behind us we'll finally be able to complete plans that have been in the pending tray for far too long. We'll also be able to make greater inroads into the US market and increase our UK…
More than 50 independent music labels ("indies") have signed on with Liquid Audio, the leading provider of music downloads over the Internet. The announcement was made March 19 at South by Southwest (SXSW), an annual music and media conference in Austin, Texas.
Labels that have committed to Liquid Audio's technology include 911 Entertainment, Aegean Records, Art & Soul, Ark 21, PopMafia, Dedicated Records, Rounder Records, Twin/Tone Records, Razor & Tie Entertainment, and STV Sessions. All are participants in Liquid Audio's Indie 1000 program, which was begun last year.
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Three-dimensional modeling, 4-pi anechoic chambers, and laser inteferometry were but a few of the industrial marvels revealed in early March to a group of Stereophile and Stereophile Guide to Home Theater scribes. The group convened Tuesday, March 7, at Revel headquarters in the massive Harman International complex in Northridge, California, for an inside view of the company's research, development, and manufacturing operations, organized and led by Madrigal president Mark Glazier. Madrigal is Harman's Middletown, Connecticut-based high-end operation, with the Proceed, Mark Levinson, and…
Start policing your employees' use of file sharing networks or we sue you. That was the threat from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to Fortune 1000 companies last week as the organizations announced the publication and distribution of a guide "to assist US companies in preventing copyright abuse on their computers and networks."
While some feel that online file trading is the only thing keeping the music business afloat, because it exposes listeners to new music, the RIAA clearly disagrees. The guide, titled A Corporate…
MP3-formatted audio files are considered to be the most popular streaming technology on the Internet, but the major record labels have so far shunned the format, which doesn't offer as much security and pay-per-download options as they'd like. Several announcements last week coincided with the WebNoize conference in Los Angeles and revealed what a few of the labels are thinking.
Capitol Records and broadcast.com announced that they are joining forces to create a new, co-branded Capitol Records/broadcast.com music channel. The new channel will be hosted on the broadcast.com website and…
Last week, BMG Entertainment, the music and entertainment division of Bertelsmann AG, revealed that it will join several other major labels (see previous stories EMI and Universal) by bringing its own digital downloads to the Internet this September. The company says that it will start with approximately 50 songs and 50 complete albums, to be made available via several retail Web outlets at prices ranging from $1.98 to $3.49 per song and from $9.98 to $16.98 per album.
Of the big five music companys—BMG, EMI, Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros.—only Warner has not announced an online…