Just a few months after debuting the well-conceived and well-received Halo line of two-channel separates, San Francisco–based Parasound has launched a high-end monoblock amplifier commissioned from legendary designer John Curl and his CTC Builders group (with Carl Thompson and Bob Crump). The powerful JC 1 is "among the most transparent, dynamic, and sonically neutral solid-state amplifiers in audio…
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Home theater may be the electronic industry's golden goose, but, contrary to nasty rumors, standalone audio is sailing along proudly, as demonstrated by several recently released products.
Call it the comeback kid. Only a year ago, electronics retailer Best Buy Company was on the brink of disaster. Reeling from rapid expansion---34 new stores in two years---and suffering from an industry-wide sales slump, the retailer was said to be close to defaulting on some large-scale loans. Customers were being offered no-interest long-term credit as an inducement to buy anything on the sales floor.
The picture has brightened considerably since then. Best Buy has streamlined its product lines, begun emphasizing aftermarket warranties, and has benefited from a general rebound in the…
After more than ten years in development, Sirius Satellite Radio announced last week that it will be officially launching its service with two events in Jackson, Mississippi beginning February 13. Sirius' competitor XM Satellite radio was able to get its service up and running last September.
Sirius had announced last November that its target date to go live would be February 14, initially in Denver, Phoenix, and Houston, and it looks like they've made good on that promise. The company has three satellites orbiting directly over the US and is set to broadcast 100 channels of "digital…
HTPCs are hot among home theater cognoscenti. Using a personal computer to anchor an audio/video system has boomed in recent years due to the availability of high quality video processing software, Dolby Digital and DTS decoding support, and DVD transports. HTPCs (home theater personal computers) also thrive in part because of the tinkering gene shared by many enthusiasts.
The same is not true for high resolution digital audio. Apple's new OSX supports 96/24, and there are a few sound cards out there to decode DVD-A. But tinkering PC audiophiles are out of luck with SACD's DSD format…
The dirty little secret about consumer CD recorders has recently been getting out: In order to record on one of the new "inexpensive" consumer CD machines from such manufacturers as Pioneer or Philips, you have to purchase special "consumer audio" CD-Rs that can cost three to four times as much as the same CD-R formatted for use with a professional or computer-based CD recorder.
This is all thanks to the RIAA Home Recording Act tariffs that apply to those scalawags at home who are robbing the record companies blind by making backups or copies of commercial CDs, their own music, or making a…
Nagra USA: The Kudelski Group has announced that Nagra USA, Inc. has appointed John R. Quick of Tempo Sales & Marketing its national sales manager for the United States. Quick was formerly national sales manager for Aerial Acoustics and has experience in high-end A/V sales, system engineering, project management, and control systems integration.
Nagra's press release on Quick's appointment said that the company's decision to market its product line through its established US subsidiary "is part of a global move by Nagra to get closer to its customers. ... The company believes that…
NAD has announced what they claim is the world's first true digital audio power amplifier directly linking a CD player to a loudspeaker. As explained by Peter Lyngdorf, chairman of NAD Electronics and TACT Audio, the Millennium "is not a conventional combination of D/A converter and analog amplification.
"The TACT Millennium employs a PWM (pulse-width modulation) amplification stage to amplify a digital signal and couple it directly to the loudspeaker without converting it to the analog domain." Among the claimed benefits of the design are high efficiency---close to 90%---and "constant…
Back in September of 1986, the KEF R107 loudspeaker represented the flagship of KEF's much admired Reference Series. Dick Olsher and a variety of other Stereophile scribes profile this important audio achievement over the course of five years, wrapping up with Tom Norton's 1995 review of the R107/2 "Raymond Cooke Signature Edition."
"Energy had their own room at the January '93 WCES," writes Thomas J. Norton in his review of the Energy Veritas v2.8 loudspeaker. "Veritas, of course, means truth. And 'truth' seemed an apt description, based on my brief exposure. I left the room muttering…
FM stereo, introduced in 1961, was the last great leap ahead in commercial radio. That was 38 years ago, an eternity in technological time. Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) techniques are capable of overcoming many of the limitations of analog broadcasting, including multipath distortion. Such systems are already in place in Europe and Canada, so why not in the United States?
Blame it on the reluctance of American broadcasters to relinquish their present spots on the radio dial, and on the glacial pace of the Federal Communications Commission. As of November 1, the agency has finally…
The fate of Tower Records has been the subject of music industry speculation for months. The company's financial difficulties have been no secret; several stories recently appeared alluding to a new Tower policy of making some suppliers share the burden—especially distributors of small specialty classical labels.
The Sacramento, CA–based music retailer has also been rumored to be a candidate for bankruptcy, a possibility that could sink the small labels who depend on Tower's "deep catalog" operation.
Tower owners Louise and Russ Solomon have put such rumors to rest, at least…