Combining SET tube amplifiers with horn speakers is established audiophile practice. But as Robert Deutsch divulges in his review of the Quicksilver Audio Horn Mono monoblock power amplifier, "in my…
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A pair of audiophile-friendly speakers for under $250? That prospect piqued Robert J. Reina into closely examining the PSB Alpha B loudspeaker. Reina notes that designer Paul Barton "is not one to rest on his laurels. Into this third and latest generation of the Alpha, the Alpha B, he has trickled down some of the design and manufacturing innovations of his more expensive Image series."
Audio Research Corporation is often considered one of the greybeards of the hi-fi business, having begun its audiophile life way back in 1970. Even so, the company, often noted for its tube equipment, is proving that it can still make a run at the cutting edge of amplifier design.
ARC has now put into production the new 150M Modular Multichannel Power Amplifier, first hinted at during the January 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and which incorporates the Tripath TA0105A Class-T digital audio amplifier driver. Tripath has established itself in audio circles as the creator…
As we go into our fourth week of coverage of Sony BMG's digital rights management debacle, it's a good time to review what all the fuss has been about. On October 31, Mark Russinovich posted his discovery of a root kit—a cloaked file that had been inserted on to his computer's hard drive. Cloaked root kit files are popular tools used by malevolent hackers, so Russinovich was curious about how the files he detected had entered his computer. It came from Get Right With the Man, a Sony DRM-protected disc Russinovich had purchased and played on his computer. When he attempted to remove the hidden…
Software giant Microsoft Corporation has acquired Pacific Microsonics, Inc. (PMI), developer of High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) technology. The deal was announced in a joint press release issued September 18. Financial details were not disclosed.
The acquisition of Union City, California–based PMI is part of an ongoing strategy by Microsoft to bring promising entertainment technologies under its umbrella. Microsoft's intention is to "incorporate PMI's pioneering technology into future offerings for the PC and will make it available to a wide range of consumer devices,"…
From the Show:
June 12: "May you live in interesting times," said Stereophile editor John Atkinson, quoting an old Chinese curse as he introduced a panel of experts to discuss high-bit-rate audio. The panel represented a cross-section of high-resolution audio experts from both the hardware and software industries. Has this great leap forward become a Pandora's Box of unforeseen problems?
Question from the audience to the panelists: Are these new formats (DVD-Audio, DSD) going to create new monsters, the way jitter was discovered years after the introduction of the compact disc?…
Which has more value in the 21st century: the constitutionally-guaranteed right to free speech or the music industry's right to protect its encryption technology? Princeton University professor Edward W. Felten intends to find out.
Felten, the encryption expert who, with a group of colleagues, successfully met a challenge put forth last year by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), filed suit June 6 in a US federal court in New Jersey, seeking the right to present a paper detailing his group's methodology and results at the USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, DC, to be held…
More European music lovers will soon be able to enjoy the offerings of Music Choice, a leading provider of audio and data services. Zug, Switzerland-based The Fantastic Corporation announced an agreement October 28 with Music Choice that will expand the musical options for computer-equipped music fans in Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and other countries.
Music Choice Europe is a digital audio service operated as a joint venture by Sony, Warner, EMI, AEI Music, BskyB, and General Instrument. The service offers as many as 50 genre-specific channels of commercial-free music…
As Robert J. Reina writes, "I have a passion for great speaker designs at affordable prices, and with modern driver, crossover, and cabinet technologies making innovative strides, many serious high-end speaker designers are turning their attention to coming up with the next great budget speaker." At $649/pair, is the PSB Image 4T loudspeaker it? Reina divulges the results of his aural examination.
Chip Stern is concerned that the upgrade path can sometimes be made steeper by components that combine multiple functions in a single chassis. But in his review of the VTL IT-85 integrated…
SACD partisans Sony and Philips continue to release new disc players that also decode DVD-Video, but not DVD-Audio. And arch-DVD-A supporter Meridian, as well as companies such as McIntosh, are releasing DVD-A and DVD-V players that don't do SACD. But there are exceptions, notably Pioneer, who debuted the first widely available "universal" player, the DV-AX10 SACD/DVD-A/CD player, last year.
Proving once again that it's a music-lover, not a fighter, Pioneer formally announced its latest generation of universal machines, first promised at the 2002 CES this past January. Revealed to the…
The next generation of streaming media technology was unveiled last week at RealNetworks' Conference '98 in Burlingame, California. The star of the show? "Bandwidth-friendly" RealPlayer G2, which promises to make noisy audio and glitchy video a part of the Web's past.
Built upon synchronized multimedia streaming language, and demonstrated by RealNetworks CEO Mark Glaser, the new technology is claimed to offer "crystal clear" audio and video that is quality-scalable depending on users' modem speeds. It will also allow the simultaneous transmission of text, graphics, movies, or images as a…