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Today marked the opening of Home Entertainment 2004 East, held at Manhattan's Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue in Midtown. By long tradition, the first press conference in The Home Entertainment Show's busy press day has always been occupied by Sony and this year was no different. As we entered the Sony Suite, we were greeted by a wall display of over 2000 SACD titles—surely enough to be considered a down-payment on the critical mass that will be necessary for any high-rez format to survive. But any hopes that Sony would address SACD were quickly dashed in the press conference itself, which was…
A ticket to Home Entertainment 2003—The Hi-Fi and Home Theater event, to be held June 5-8, 2003 at San Francisco's Westin–St. Francis Hotel will offer attendees a chance to hear over a dozen live musical performances from great artists performing contemporary jazz, blues, rock, and classical music.
Concerts at HE2003 are available to ticket holders on a first-come, first-served basis. Unless noted otherwise, all concerts will take place in the Westin–St. Francis Hotel's Colonial Room.
Concert Schedule
Thursday, June 5, 2003
Delphi XM SkyFi and XM Satellite Radio…
If you're a retailer harboring visions of including Klipsch Audio Technologies' products among the offerings in a deep-discount website, forget it. Likewise, reconsider if you've been tempted to buy Klipsch products at unbelievable prices from such a site. And if you're a Klipsch dealer with some overstock, don't take the bait if someone with a website offers you cash for a bulk deal, don't even think about it—because Klipsch is one company that takes the gray market seriously.
On April 1, the Indianapolis-based audio giant announced the successful conclusion of litigation begun the first…
In the record industry's ongoing battle against its customers, score one for the consumer. Amid recent industry rumors that Universal Music Group has retreated from its position of adding restrictions to all of its new CDs, a lawsuit over a Charley Pride release has been settled in California, paving the way to alert the public to playback restrictions on discs.
Last September, Californian Karen DeLise sued restriction technology company SunnComm along with Fahrenheit Entertainment and its record label, Music City Records, on behalf of the General Public of the State of California, "to…
Although the Tweeter Home Entertainment Group's rate of expansion has slowed, it shows no sign of stopping. The Canton, MA electronics retailer will open six new stores during the month of November.
Next month, Tweeter will open new stores in the Philadelphia and Washington, DC areas, two in Nashville, and one each in Spartanburg and Charleston, SC. The Charleston store will be in the suburban town of Mt. Pleasant. Tweeter is also relocating its store within the Dallas, TX Galleria, where it will emphasize custom installation and system design services.
Tweeter operates 168 stores…
The bad news for the music industry: Teenagers bought less music last year, according to a recently released survey commissioned by the Recording Industry Association of America. The good news: Middle-aged folks bought more, according to the same survey.
The poll, released June 25 and reported by both Bloomberg News and Dow Jones Newswire, indicates that music sales to consumers aged 19 and younger fell from 25% of overall sales in 1998 to 21% last year. Music sales to consumers over 45 years of age rose from 18% of the total market in 1998 to 25% in the same period.
The decline in…
Noted jazz recording engineer David Baker died unexpectedly on July 14 in Rochester, NY.
It has become commonplace in obituaries to call almost any prominent person "legendary," but David Baker truly earned the sobriquet. He participated in more than 2000 recordings, including many now considered classics for both sound and content.
Baker was all but born to the trade, according to Eugene Chadborne's biography at allmusic.com. His grandfather was a salesman for Columbia Records, and his father installed hi-fi systems professionally in Atlanta. As a youth, David Baker began making…
Many small classical record labels are facing an uncertain future in the wake of a decision by Tower Records to put three classical distributors on buying hold. News of the decision, and discussions about its ramifications, have circulated on the Internet after an internal memo was leaked on May 1. The memo from company headquarters ordered store buyers at all 113 Tower stores in the US not to purchase from Allegro, Harmonia Mundi, and Qualiton, until receiving further notice. The three distributors represent dozens of small independent jazz and classical recording labels.
Sacramento, CA…
Consumers prefer to get a good deal, and dealers like to maintain a healthy profit margin. Somewhere in the relationship is a perfect balance, where buyers get a legitimate product for the best price while dealers make enough money to ensure that the customer can be supported properly.
Transshipping, the practice of an authorized selling outside of its assigned territory or to an unauthorized dealer, plays havoc with this balance. Typically, the transhipper knows that it will not be providing follow-up service and/or customer support, and sets prices accordingly.
In an effort to…
On May 17, XM Satellite Radio was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which alleged that Pioneer's personal portable XM device, the Inno, infringes on copyrights and essentially represents a digital download device.
Such a short sentence and yet in need of such extensive explanations! To start, the lawsuit was filed by Atlantic, BMG Music, Capitol Records, Elektra Entertainment Group, Interscope, Motown, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Virgin, and Warner Bros.
The Pioneer Inno (and the functionally equivalent Samsung Helix), does indeed record XM Radio…