I cannot describe how offended I was by this man's complaint. The world of high-end audio is small. What audiophiles today take as a given in this world, even take for granted, has been the result of many years of intense effort by many talented people.…
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Last week it was revealed that David Manley has resigned as president of Manley Laboratories and has assigned his total shares in the company to EveAnna Manley as part of an agreement signed June 10, 1999. EveAnna Manley has officially assumed the duties of president, CEO, and sole owner of Manley Laboratories, Inc. A press release states that David Manley is no longer associated or affiliated with Manley Laboratories, Inc., and that EveAnna Manley has been de facto operating CEO of the company since David Manley's departure in 1996.
The company, which claims to have grown 75% over the…
With new audio formats such as SACD and DVD-Audio hitting the market, audiophiles will soon have more choices than ever for playing back music. But along with all of these options comes the hard part: choosing which path to take and hoping not to be dead-ended, as Beta video owners were years back. For consumers, the promised universal audio players (expected to play DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, CD, and SACD) will reduce the risk significantly.
But for the record labels that supply us with music, the choices get complicated fast. Should they release discs in SACD or DVD-A format? Should they…
Throughout the history of the animal kingdom, sounds have always been full of meaning. They provide valuable information on the whereabouts of prey and predator, the location of family, the intentions of friend and foe. Sound cues have always been as important as information obtained by scent and sight.
Until the computer revolution, that is. Computers and their designers have mostly ignored sound's potential for conveying meaning. Until soundcards became widespread, the only sounds the typical computer could make were a few irritating chirps and beeps. Even after soundcards became…
John Atkinson gets his hands on "the very strange-looking" MBL 111B loudspeaker to determine how "upper-frequency drive-units resembling an array of orange segments" could possibly sound. As JA discovers, thinking different can sometimes be a plus.
"There's nothing particularly unusual or innovative about the Antares' design," comments Michael Fremer in his review of the Rockport Technologies Antares loudspeaker. But, with the speakers costing $41,500/pair, MF finds that the value is indeed in the detials.
Robert J. Reina takes the Athena Technologies AS-F2 loudspeaker out for a…
Audiophiles have been hit hard lately, as DVD-Audio's release schedule has succumbed to piracy concerns and Sony has so far refused to allow digital outputs on SACD decks. (Only digital outs for CD playback are allowed.) You can listen, but don't touch. But at least there are still no such restrictions on CD players that would inhibit the use of their digital datastreams . . . for now.
TTR Technologies and Macrovision hope to change all that. Last week they announced an agreement to jointly develop and market a copy-protection product designed to thwart the copying of optical audio…
Stereophile editor John Atkinson---arguably the high-end audio publishing industry's single most important figure, and certainly its intellectual nexus---has seen it all in his 23 years in the high-end audio industry. At HI-FI '99 in Chicago, Audiocafe.com's Andrew Keen was able to pull JA away from his busy schedule for an in-depth interview about his views on the industry's current state of affairs---and on what's just over the horizon.
The American economy is in great shape, and yet the high-end audio industry is in a prolonged slump. Part of this slump is a repercussion from the Asian…
Billy Preston, the keyboard player, singer, and songwriter frequently credited as "the fifth Beatle," died June 6 in Scottsdale, AZ from respiratory complications from improperly treated pericarditas he experienced in an LA hospital visit on November 21, 2005.
Preston, born September 2, 1946 in Houston, TX, was mentored by Ray Charles. He was a regular performer on the mid-1960s ABC TV show Shindig! and toured Europe with Little Richard. In Hamburg, the soon-to-be-famous Beatles opened for Little Richard, then at the height of his popularity. It was there that the teenage Preston and the…
The world's two largest and most active music clubs may become one if preliminary talks between their parent companies bear fruit. Time Warner Inc. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG have conducted discussions with that outcome in mind, according to several reports appearing in late April.
Columbia House, jointly operated by Sony Music and Time Warner, could merge with Bertelsmann's BMG Direct if negotiations go smoothly. The two clubs dominate the mail-order music business, with deep catalogs in many categories, including jazz, classical, pop, rock, r&b, hip-hop, and country. The two…
How does a struggling satellite radio service increase its market exposure more than 20-fold in one fell swoop? Simple. It enters a sweetheart deal with one of the biggest satellite TV companies in North America.
That's exactly what Sirius Satellite Radio did in mid-May. The New York–based Sirius signed an agreement with EchoStar's DISH Network to provide 9.7 million DISH subscribers with an array of music programming that most of them have almost certainly not encountered before. The deal instantly elevated the potential number of Sirius listeners from a previous base of 400,000—a figure…