Wes is one of the most talented writers and one of the most perceptive listeners I have had the privilege to work beside. He has been a reviewer for Stereophile since we published his thoughts on loudspeakers in our last big group test (Vol.17 No.8, August…
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It is with regret that I announce that Wes Phillips has resigned from Stereophile in order to take a position, beginning January 1, 1999, with PR company J.B. Stanton Communications, Inc. Wes and his wife, Joan, will be relocating to Connecticut. I wonder how Wes's unreconstructed Virginia ancestors will take to his becoming a Yankee!
Since the earliest days of stereo—the first experiments with more than single-channel sound happened back in the 1930s—recording and playback have been based on a horizontal model: left-center-right, left-rear, right-rear. "Laterality," as it's sometimes called, can be exploited very well in creating plausible sensations of spatial events, especially by film-industry sound engineers. The believable reproduction of music is considerably more problematic.
In the real world, sounds come at us from all directions—not merely from front, sides, and back, but from above and below as well.…
While a relative trickle of copy-restricted CDs have been released in the US, European labels have been more likely to experiment with lock-down technology. Russia is battling extreme piracy, as its culture and mass communications minister, Aleksandr Sokolov, reported to his government last week, asserting that pirated wares account for 80–90% of the overall audio and video sales in that country.
Sokolov says that his ministry is developing plans to protect intellectual property rights, including a verification program for licensed wares. Sokolov notes, "This will be our know-how enabling…
Sony may be pretending that DVD-Audio doesn't exist, and Panasonic may be in denial about SACD, but a new chip from Texas Instruments just might help bring the rival formats a little closer together in consumer living rooms and professional recording studios alike.
Last week, TI announced a high-performance audio digital/analog converter (DAC), from the company's Burr-Brown product line, designed specifically for high-performance consumer and professional audio systems such as DVD and CD players, A/V receivers, Super Audio CD (SACD) players, HDTV receivers, digital effects processors, and…
Polk Audio completely redesigned its popular RTi series of loudspeakers. The RTis occupy the "better" position in Polk's good (R series), better (RTi), best (LSi) hierachy. The refurbished line features new drivers, higher quality cabinets, and handsome cosmetics—including real wood veneers in black oak and cherry.
The range boasts five models: two two-way bookshelf units (the $259.90/pair RTi 4 and the $459.90/pair RTi 6) and three floorstanding models (the RTi 8 at $839.90/pair, the RTi 10 at $1139.90/pair, and the RTi 12 at $1639.90/pair). All feature new generation polymer/…
The trend of computers redefining the price/performance ratio for digital audio shows no signs of slowing down. A new PCI-slot soundcard has been released by Digital Connection that could help change preconceived notions about the level of sound quality achievable from a computer. The $295 DC Pro 24/96 enables a brand-new function for the PC, playback of DTS 5.1 music CDs, as well as support for 24-bit/96kHz playback and recording, currently available only on high-end soundcards such as the CardDeluxe from Digital Audio Labs and the RME DigiPro/8.
Current 24/96 linear PCM recordings on…
It only makes sense. PBS, the most visible national broadcaster of classical-music-related programs, has decided to launch its own classical-music label. According to a recent story in Variety, several major record labels are competing for the rights to distribute the new label. It's common in the music business for larger labels to distribute smaller ones, and an association with the new PBS label is seen as a feather in the cap of whoever makes the deal.
This can only be good news to the beleaguered classical-music record industry, which has seen steady but modest sales over the last…
Dynaudio US's president, Al Filippelli, tells Wes Phillips that "Dynaudio speakers are a lot like the Danes who make them. They don't look all that fancy, but they tell the truth and they get the job done. To a lot of audiophiles, that's boring. But there are a lot of people who have been looking for those qualities in a loudspeaker, and for them, boring can be cause for excitement." Phillips takes an in-depth look at the Dynaudio Contour 3.3 loudspeaker to determine if "boring" can make him happy.
Next, Jonathan Scull dissects the Nagra PL-P preamplifier: "And there it was, cute as a…
DualDisc has apparently stumbled hard right out of the gate. Earlier this year, test marketing of the DualDisc in Boston and Seattle indicated that music fans would eagerly accept the new format, one that combines standard Compact Disc audio content on one side with DVD (audio and video) on the other.
DualDisc's official debut has been anything but auspicious. In early November, Sony issued a warning that the discs might cause problems when used in many models of the company's popular PlayStation gaming consoles. Among the many cautions was a note that the CD side of a DualDisc "does not…
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is continuing its legal campaign against file sharing. In late March, the trade organization launched a new salvo of lawsuits against 532 individuals and 21 university computer networks across the country—89 of the accused violators used school networks for downloading or sharing large numbers of copyrighted recordings. The RIAA claimed that the alleged violators shared an average of 837 songs.
The latest move is the first time the RIAA has gone after university networks, whose administrators have generally cooperated with investigators.…