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HI-FI '98 Report, Part Two

From the Show:

June 14: The second and third floors of the Westin generally sport the larger exhibits, with a corresponding propensity for BIG BASS. Just like cars on an urban street, rooms here competed in the boom wars, with Show management called in to referee once in while.

Not surprisingly, Wilson Audio, as demonstrated in the L.A. Audio suite, had plenty of firepower ready---their new $38,000/pair MAXX speaker was on display, fronting two boxcar-sized woofer towers. Amplification was from Krell, and a Runco DTV1000 rested on a steel truss. The music portion of the demo was…

Bootmarks Are Coming

It's no secret that the music industry has added watermarking to its arsenal in an effort to restrict how audio content is used. With SACD, DVD-Audio, and now CD, audio watermarking has been used mainly for digitally stored content. But the music business also has problems with live concert bootlegs as well as bootlegs surfacing after special broadcast events.

Unlike the secret tapers of the past, who had to smuggle in their equipment, bootleggers these days don't even need to attend the performances they pirate: Recent trends find the bootleggers outside a venue tapping into the pristine…

ISPs <I>vs</I> RIAA

Internet service providers (ISPs) have begun fighting back against the blitzkrieg of lawsuits launched by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its struggle to contain the file-sharing phenomenon.

On Monday, August 11, NetCoalition, a trade association of ISPs, sent a letter to the RIAA questioning its tactics in litigating against Internet users and the companies that serve them. The group pointed out that file sharing is not illegal, and expressed fear that the RIAA's efforts could lead to "an attack on the legitimate uses of peer-to-peer technology."

The Digital…

Is There a Future for Hi-Rez?

Is there a future for high-resolution recordings? Why do so many people fail to hear a difference between them and ordinary CDs? Why do some purportedly high-rez discs sound so bad? What obstacles does the audio industry face in trying to make high-rez a commercial success?

These were among the questions addressed by a panel of audio industry luminaries at a discussion entitled High Resolution Audio in an Age of Universal Playback, held the first day of the 117th Audio Engineering Society convention, October 28–30 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Chaired by audio signal processing…

Added to the Archives This Week

In 1997, Martin Colloms reviewed the Krell Full Power Balanced 600 power amplifier, wondering "Can a 600Wpc amplifier be relevant to domestic high fidelity?"

Next, from August 1995, Robert Deutsch adds the pricey Jeff Rowland Design Group Model 2 power amplifier to his system asking "How do you define value in an audio component?" For most audiophiles like RD, it is not always a matter of "price:watt ratios."

From the June 1996 issue, Robert Deutsch explains why the YBA 1 Alpha HC power amplifier is an example "of auteur theory in audio." As Deutsch notes, not only do YBA…

IBM and Liquid Audio Cross-Fertilize

The struggle for position in the Internet-based audio downloading market continues unabated. On the format front, Sony has recently announced several deals to bring its ATRAC compressed-audio format to the Web, while IBM and Liquid Audio announced last week that they have entered into a strategic relationship intended to "advance the digital music marketplace" with content-management tools.

Under the new agreement, Liquid Audio says it plans to license the digital rights management (DRM) technology from IBM's Electronic Media Management System (EMMS) for integration into Liquid's music…

More Research Heralding the Booming Online Music Age

According to a recent report released by Information Technology researchers Frost & Sullivan, the world Internet audio market generated revenues totaling $42 million in 1998, which dwarfs the 1997 revenues by 1516%. The report predicts that this market will continue growing at a healthy rate, achieving an increase into the triple percentage digits by the end of 1999.

The report indicates that the primary drivers behind the popularity of this "booming market" include the flexibility that it gives users to compile the music they prefer, its accessibility through the Internet, and the…

Blu-ray Edge?

We all know by now the perils of proclaiming a winner before all of the votes have been cast, but with the possible future of high-resolution audio and video data storage at stake, the temptation to call it early is great.

Unlike the SACD/DVD-Audio format struggle, which has passed largely unnoticed by the mainstream press for the last five years, the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray battle has already gained prominent notice around the globe, and strategic hardware and software alliances for both formats are quickly gelling.

Frost & Sullivan researcher Rajesh Kannan recently declared, "The…

HI-FI '99, Day Two

Following the Sony/Philips jump from the starting line with Wednesday's SACD announcements, the DVD-Audio camp quickly came up to speed at the HI-FI '99 press luncheon with their plans for players and discs to appear this fall. First up at the podium was Jordan Rost from the Warner Music Group. Contrasts with the SACD position were established from the start when Rost made it obvious that, unlike SACD, DVD-Audio seeks to embrace not only high-end audio, but also various forms of video, and even Internet interactivity. Rost even went so far as to say that DVD-Audio discs could "play on CD…

Rudi Gassner, New President of BMG Entertainment, Dies at 58

Music industry veteran Rudi Gassner died Saturday, December 23 at his vacation home in the Bavarian town of Samerberg. Recently appointed as president and chief executive of BMG Entertainment, Gassner had yet to assume the helm at the record label. The cause of death was a heart attack, according to a statement issued by his family. Gassner was 58.

"The death of Rudi Gassner is a tragic loss," Bertelsmann chairman Thomas Middelhoff said Sunday, describing Gassner as "a successful media entrepreneur and a great hope for us all in view of the necessary development and reorganization of our…