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David Baker: 1945–2004

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…

Hard Times Ahead for Small Classical Labels?

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…

Krell Gets Tough

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…

All of XM's Trials

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…

Judge Reverses Injunction: Rio is Back in Action

For the past three weeks (see previous article) we've been reporting on the troubled plight of Diamond Multimedia's new Rio portable MP3 audio player. Announced in grand fashion by Diamond several months back, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) quickly set its sights on the device, and fired what it hoped would be a fatal shot in the form of an injunction. The RIAA appeared to have succeeded until last week, when US Central District Court California Judge Audrey Collins reversed her initial ruling from 10 days earlier of an injunction, paving the way for the product's…

UK Music Sales Rise

Contrary to popular assumption, music downloads and CD sales may reinforce each other. That's one reasonable interpretation of mid-February music industry statistics from the United Kingdom.

On February 10, the BBC reported that British consumers bought more than 150,000 singles online in January, making the virtual format the "second most-popular format for singles," exceeding 7" and 12" vinyl releases and DVD singles. Only CD singles outsold downloads, according to the British Official Charts Company (OCC), which began tracking online music sales in October 2003. The development marks the…

Where is the Best Online Place to Latch On to some CDs?

In a recent bake-off, online retailer CDnow was named top music banana by the New York consulting firm eMarketer. Although placing further down the list based on price alone, CDnow gained the highest overall score in an averaging of the rankings of six criteria. Rated on a scale of 1 to 5, these were: Selection, Price, Service, Usability, Presentation, and Features.

Online music sales have certainly been a resounding success, even by frothy web standards, with about $90 million sales estimated for this year and $1.4 billion predicted for the year 2002. (See previous report.) For their…

Digital Radio Avoids Falling Off a Cliff

One of the classic problems with digital technology is what is known as the "cliff effect": when digital signals reach their limits, they don't fail gracefully like analog ones do---they go off a cliff and crash hard. Not only has the tendency for digital signals to exhibit their limitations noisily in the audio recording and playback environment been a problem for engineers and listeners, the effect on the digital broadcast industry has been tough to circumvent as well---until now.

Last week, Lucent Digital Radio, a wholly owned venture of Lucent Technologies, announced a technical…

Von Schweikert Back from the Flood

As reported last March, loudspeaker manufacturer Von Schweikert Research closed its doors after a disastrous flood hit the factory (see previous report). Many thought this was the end of the story, but last week, Dr. Edward Gonzaga, of the Gonzaga Investment Group, announced the formation of a new version of the company, to be named Von Schweikert Audio.

The new company will reportedly again be headed by speaker designer Albert Von Schweikert, who has revealed plans for the release of two all-new speaker systems, the VR-5 and VR-7, to be shipped to consumers beginning January 15. In…

Xtreme Fidelity

It's no wonder the public is confused about audio formats and sound quality, Consider claims such as the recent "major breakthrough" announcement concerning two audio technologies from Creative Technology, a company best known for making PC peripherals (most notably the Sound Blaster audio cards).

First, Creative has coined the term "Xtreme Fidelity," which it describes as "the new standard in audio," and coupled that with the release of the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. "The combination of Xtreme Fidelity and the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor provides…