Is there anybody in government who cares about the consumer instead of corporate interests? Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) may be one of the few on Jane Q. Public's side. Last week he said, "The RIAA's response…
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The record companies have declared war on their customers when it comes to the fair use rights of purchased music, and it would appear that they want the government to enlist in their crusade. Previous weeks have seen South Carolina senator Ernest Hollings propose draconian copyright legislation as well as recent pro-Hollywood remarks from California's senator Diane Feinstein.
We were saddened to learn (via the website Boing-boing) that Dr. Robert A. Moog, inventor of the world's first real-time reconfigurable music synthesizer, is being treated for a brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM), for which he is receiving radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
Moog is probably best known to audiophiles for the Wendy Carlos albums Switched On Bach (1968) and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969), which were not the first albums to feature his Moog synthesizers, but may have been the first that exploited the instrument's potential for musical expression rather than…
We are saddened to learn of the passing, on December 13, of audio writer Ann Turner. Ann, who was diagnosed earlier in the year as suffering from clear cell carcinoma, was a stalwart of high-end audio magazine The Abso!ute Sound---Editor Harry Pearson tells me he used to refer to her as "the Aquarian War God," a phrase she liked. She was also the inspiration and the driving force behind that publication's web site, The Abso!ute Sound.
Ann's most recent writing for TAS was her review of the Audio Synthesis Passion line stage in Issue 111, entitled "Passionately Passive: a Life Style." Ann…
In addition to fostering the exchange of audio files, peer-to-peer websites may be sharing the problems of increased legal liabilities and bandwidth drains for businesses which allow employees to access file-sharing sites from corporate networks.
This is the conclusion reached in a recent report from Internet consultant Websense. Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing was brought to the public's attention last year with the rise and fall of Napster and is generally defined as individuals' use of the Internet to share resources such as hard drives and processing cycles among their computers and other…
Cello, one of high-end audio's most prestigious names, is being revived by one of its former executives. Jim McCullough, who served as the brand's last vice president of international business development, has formed a new company, Matthew James LLC, which will make and market Cello electronics.
The manufacture and marketing of Cello products was halted in April 2000, after principals of parent company Cello Technologies, Inc. decided they could no longer operate at an acceptable level of profitability. The previous year, the company had made an ambitious expansion with seven Cello…
In his review of the Velodyne Digital Drive DD-18 powered subwoofer, Larry Greenhill comments, "When I've tested other 'breakthrough' subwoofers, I've been disappointed. All the convenient fine-tuning in the world won't matter if I end up with the same nasty old room modes and woofer bloat." But as LG discovers, the DD-18 is indeed different.
Stereophile's multichannel music maven, Kalman Rubinson, checks out the Fosgate Audionics FAP V1 surround processor/preamplifier. KR writes, "No Dolby Digital, no DTS—just Dolby Pro Logic . . . . But the more I thought about it, the more interesting a…
Editor's Note: Lowther horn speakers and their "clubs" have been important to do-it-yourself hi-fi hobbyists in Europe for decades. A common question from readers in other parts of the world is "What are Lowther speakers, and where can I hear them?" We asked Mr. Doppenberg, of the Lowther Club of Holland, to give us a quick tour of the Lowther story. For more extensive information, check the links at the end of this piece.
There were no high-powered amplifiers in the early 1930s when P.G.A.H. Voigt (Paul Voigt) designed his first loudspeaker with a permanent magnet…
On January 14, anyone calling Naim Audio heard an Elgar recording, and visitors to the Naim website forum learned the sad news that founder and managing director Julian Vereker had died. The company—indeed, British hi-fi as a whole—is mourning the loss of one of its brightest and strongest personalities.
Julian started in audio some 30 years ago, getting into hi-fi almost accidentally, when people asked for replicas of the amplifiers he'd built for his own recording work. With vigor and enthusiasm, he took on an establishment that, in those days, denied the very existence of "amplifier…
While Napster was thriving a few short months ago, the music business was noisily seething and quietly plotting. How could they put the digital audio genie back into the content-control bottle? Although Napster has since been gutted, the labels have identified the unprotected CD as the source of their woes, and now it's payback time.
As reported in recent weeks, Macrovision has secretly inserted copy-protection distortion onto thousands of CDs, while BMG is privately testing SunnComm's MediaCloQ approach. Latest to publicly announce copy-protection exploits is Midbar Tech, which…
Home Entertainment 2002 is set to open to the public as planned, May 31–June 2, 2002, at the Hilton New York & Towers Hotel in New York City. Show attendees will be treated to numerous free educational seminars and musical performances from a dozen popular jazz, classical, and contemporary recording artists.
Classical music devotees can enjoy performances by pianists Hyperion Knight and Robert Silverman and violinist Arturo Delmoni, while jazz lovers can jive with the John Pizzarelli Trio and the Atkinson/Perkins/Reina/Stewart Jazz Quartet, which features Stereophile magazine's own…