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Last week, The Recording Industry Association of America released its year-end anti-piracy statistics, which it says reveal an increase in the number of counterfeit and pirate CDs and CD-recordables confiscated in 1998. "We've had tremendous success this year with our anti-piracy initiatives," said Frank Creighton, senior vice president and director of anti-piracy. "Between the many CD plants around the country adopting better business practices to the scores of universities signing up for our copyright education program---we're making strides on all fronts."
The music industry was much in the news in late May, with file-sharing lawsuits launched, Web royalties deferred, the payola system attacked, and an artists-and-record labels coalition questioning the homogenization of radio.
On May 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continued its war on file-sharing services by launching a copyright suit against Audiogalaxy. The suit, filed in a New York federal court, alleges that Audiogalaxy has made "ineffective" efforts to filter copyrighted songs from its service. RIAA senior vice president and general counsel Matt Oppenheim…
Two new companies have formed in recent weeks to bring audiophile cable and connector products to market.
Stuart Marcus of Vampire Wire and Sound Connections International and Chris Sommovigo of Illuminati and Stereovox say they have joined forces to design, manufacture, and market "precision audio and video connectors" under the new moniker "Xhadow."
The new partners report that they initially teamed up in reaction to what they perceived as a dearth of XLR connector options for high-end cabling systems, noting that "even the most expensive audiophile balanced cables were being…
Would a piece of Krell electronics be the crowning jewel on your equipment rack?
Through August 31, the Orange, CT–based high-end manufacturer is offering a tempting deal: a 25% discount on the price of selected Krell equipment in exchange for one of your old units.
Sound too good to be true? Not so. Krell Industries announced the summer-long "Trade Up To The Best!" promotion on June 28, inviting consumers to take advantage of four separate offers that allow them to exchange their older components for substantial discounts on new, high-performance Krell equipment—"the most intense…
HDCD and Pacific Microsonics appear to be on a roll these days. The HDCD process, developed to coerce 20-bit performance out of the 16-bit CD format, is gaining several new licensees and is also appearing in more devices, as evidenced by several recent announcements. The company is also looking ahead to future DVD formats with an agreement intended to couple HDCD benefits with higher sampling rates.
At the Audio Engineering Society Convention in San Francisco this week (see report elsewhere), Pacific Microsonics announced that it is adding 192kHz A/D conversion and 96/48kHz output…
The enduring audiophile dilemma about whether to optimize a home-entertainment system for music or movies may no longer be relevant, thanks to new disc players from Sony Corporation and Philips Electronics NV. The machines were introduced at CEDIA Expo 2000, the annual home-theater and custom-installation trade show held in Indianapolis.
One of Sony's new line of versatile, affordable machines, the DVP-S9000ES, is the company's first combination Super Audio CD/DVD player. The DVP-S9000ES will also play standard CDs, CD-Rs, and DVD-Rs. A dual-laser optical system ensures compatibility…
As John Atkinson puts it, Meridian usually does things "their way," putting amps and DACs inside of speakers in an all-out attempt at "re-creating the original soundfield, no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right." But as Atkinson finds, the Meridian 518 Digital Audio Processor might be the company's most perverse product: "The $1650 518 offers digital inputs and outputs only. It can digitally perform gain and source selection; it can change data with one digital word length to data with another; and it does all these things with 72-bit internal precision." So JA asks…
When it comes to digital music players and the future of computer-based entertainment, the computer industry appears to be going in two directions at once. Apple Computer has recently made a strong move into the portable music arena with its $399 iPod, a player that can store as many as 1000 songs. The company is also rumored to be developing software and computer-based editing equipment for the pro-audio industry.
Hewlett-Packard is attempting to move into the upscale home music market with its $1000 Digital Entertainment Center de100c (see previous). A computer/audio recorder, the…
In early June, Toshiba will institute a new retailing program that embraces the Internet but favors traditional retailers. The electronics manufacturing giant will have "a defined group of Internet retailers" that will be built on a base of traditional retailers, according to an announcement made in late April. Later, the program will be expanded in stages to include Internet-only retailers. The announcement follows an announcement by Sony Corp. late in January that Sony would begin direct Internet sales this year.
Toshiba plans to keep strict controls over who can and who cannot sell…
Jamo's jammin': At the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Stereophile was entranced by the look of Jamo's striking reference R 909 "open baffle" loudspeaker ($14,999/pair). The dipolar high-gloss R 909 (available in black, red, or yellow) dispenses with the conventional box enclosure, mounting two 15" (380mm) woofers, a proprietary 5.5" (150mm) hard-conical cone (HCC) midrange, and a 1" (25mm) ScanSpeak Revelator tweeter into its raked-back front baffle, which is reinforced by a "flying" rib that lends it rigidity.
Designed by Jamo’s chief acoustic engineer Henrik Mortensen, the R 909…