"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…
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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.
Music lovers worldwide are mourning the passing of violinist Isaac Stern, who died of heart failure in a New York hospital Saturday, September 22. Stern was 81.
Stern had suffered from heart disease in recent years, even as he kept to a busy schedule of performing, teaching, and working as president of Carnegie Hall, the 110-year-old venue he helped save from the wrecker's ball more than 40 years ago. He performed at Carnegie more than 200 times, beginning with his first performance there on January 8, 1943. During his peak, Stern often gave as many as 200 concerts worldwide in a single…
Rolling Stone is going head-to-head with MTV. Last week, Wenner Media, Inc, announced a partnership with JamTV to create a music site on the Web. Wenner is the parent company of Rolling Stone magazine. JamTV is an eight-month-old Internet start-up that broadcasts live concerts.
The idea is to combine JamTV's technical prowess with Rolling Stone's cachet. The new service, to be called Rolling Stone Network, will compete against MTV and several other companies for the attention and dollars of online music fans.
Technology is rapidly improving for the distribution of audio and video…
Over three quarters of a million readers served! With several million "page views" and dozens of millions of "hits" in the past 365 days, the Stereophile website has continued to grow steadily, with a record number of folks visiting practically every week. We've also dished out over 300 news articles---practically an article each day---covering everything audio, from important new-technology announcements to the demise and then rebirth of several legendary brands.
One of the most popular features of the website has been the weekly Vote! question. With over 50 topics covered thus far, the…
Harman International announced July 1 that it will close its Madrigal facility in Middletown, CT on August 30 as it continues to consolidate and reorganize its high-end brands under the Harman Specialty Group banner. Although the name Madrigal was itself not used as a brand on audio products, it had been the umbrella under which Harman had produced and distributed its Mark Levinson, Revel, Audio Access, and (recently discontinued) Proceed brands.
Harman's Andrew Clark reports that the manufacturing and management functions carried out at the Madrigal facility in Middletown (which predates…
Both SACD and DVD-Audio have been slow finding their way into higher-end players. Sony dominates the market for SACD, and the other major consumer electronics manufacturers are trickling out DVD-A and universal players. The few exceptions include SACD machines from Classé and Accuphase. Soon to be added to the list: Linn.
Last week saw Sony, Linn, and ESS Technology, a creator of chip technology for digital video, digital home systems, and home networking, announcing a cooperative effort to support the SACD format in DVD players by incorporating ESS's Vibratto DVD single-chip products…
The economy may be slowing down in some parts of the country, but not, apparently, in Minneapolis, where national electronics retailer Best Buy Co., Inc. announced December 7 its acquisition of both Musicland Stores Corporation (also of Minneapolis) and Seattle-based Magnolia Hi-Fi, Inc. The buyouts will give Best Buy increased exposure in rural malls and in the Pacific Northwest. The company also announced a plan to open several stores in Canada over the next three years, beginning with eight locations for which leases have already been signed.
Best Buy operates more than 400 stores in…
Most aspiring musicians dream of the day they will sign a contract with a major record label. Too often, the dreams become nightmares from which they can escape only much later in life.
So stated Don Henley, Courtney Love, Patti Austin, LeAnn Rimes, and other musicians in appearances before the California Legislature's Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry during the first week of September. The artists came to Sacramento to plead for changes in California contract law which they hope will free them from a form of indentured servitude that controls not only how their creations…
As Larry Greenhill reports in his review of the Sony SCD-C555ES SACD changer, "I didn't know what to expect from multichannel SACD. Would a multichannel music-only disc give me high-energy dramatics? Would there be any room for meditative, closed-eyed, total progressive muscular relaxation?" As Greenhill says, "The best was yet to come."
After September's tragedy, John Atkinson winds his way back from depression with The Restorative Power of Music. As JA finds during an audiophile road trip in October, "I had lost sight of that restorative power in the dreadful days following September 11…
There may be hope for the most common type of hearing loss. Researchers at the University of Michigan have succeeded in growing new hair cells in the inner ears of laboratory animals, the first time that such cells have been regenerated in mammals.
Hair cells are microscopic reed-like structures within the cochlea of the inner ear. They translate hydraulic pressure waves into nerve impulses, which are carried by auditory nerves into the brain. Mammals are born with a fixed number of hair cells, which do not regrow once they have been damaged by loud noises, infections, or by some drugs…