Last Wednesday, October 21, Congress finally put its stamp of approval on the agreements, which will protect the creative works of Americans on the Internet. "The U.S. is taking historic action, demonstrating leadership that can inspire other nations to do the same, protecting the rights of creative Americans and people around the world," said Hilary Rosen…
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The Recording Industry of America is among the many organizations celebrating the recent ratification by the U.S. Congress of two treaties signed by more than 100 nations at the 1996 World Intellectual Property Conference in Geneva.
E-mail spam just got a lot noisier thanks to AT&T's a2b music and BMG Entertainment. (See previous stories 1, 2.) Last week, they announced that BMG will deliver the first "mass communication" of a2b MAIL to the consumer databases of each of its websites, www.bugjuice.com (alternative and rock music), www.peeps.com (urban music), and www.twangthis.com (country music).
Intended strictly as an e-mail marketing tool, a2b MAIL uses a mini-a2b music client player embedded in the actual e-mail message. To hear the included sample requires no downloads, plug-ins, audio streaming technology,…
Should Internet sales be subject to taxation? California's US Senator Diane Feinstein doesn't think so. Neither do most of her constituents in Silicon Valley, who are riding an unprecedented wave of prosperity as the growth of Internet commerce continues. Many folks outside Silicon Valley, especially traditional retailers, see no reason why e-commerce should be exempt from sales taxes.
The lack of sales tax has always been a strong draw for mail-order catalog sales, especially of music recordings. Despite low numbers relative to annual music sales of all kinds (more than $14 billion in…
With Napster as the little red devil with a pitchfork prodding them on, the third-largest record company in the world, EMI, making good on its earlier announcement, last week became the first major label to begin releasing music online. In a move the company hopes will silence the critics who say that Napster has become successful because the big labels have provided no Web-based alternatives, EMI put over 100 albums and 40 singles online "through all the normal retail websites."
The list of albums released for download features major releases from several musical genres, including Pink…
The intentional deafening of monkeys by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has provoked a strongly worded protest by Paul McCartney. In a letter dated July 6, McCartney complained to UCSF Chancellor Michael Bishop that "there can be no excuse for inflicting such misery" on animals used in such experiments. The letter was the latest salvo fired in a controversy going back to early February.
Researchers Marshall Fong and Stephen Cheung had intended to deafen several squirrel monkeys by subjecting them to ultra-high-intensity sound-pressure levels (SPLs). Last winter…
A year ago, Marantz gained full command over its own operations when Philips reduced its participation in the company from 50.5% to 49% by selling 1.5% of the shares to Marantz Japan Inc. (MJI).
A new development took place last week. In a joint communiqué issued March 7, MJI and its largest shareholder, Royal Philips Electronics, and Denon Ltd. and its largest (98%) shareholder, Ripplewood Holdings LLC, announced the establishment of D&M Holdings, Inc. D&M will be a joint holding company created to merge the operations of Marantz and Denon. The transaction is expected to be…
As I explain in the current issue's "As We See It" column, I decide on the ratings of the equipment featured in Stereophile's "Recommended Components" listing after consultation with the reviewers, taking into account the original review comments and, sometimes, my own experience.
But despite our best efforts, things can still go awry. This was the case with the Final Laboratory Music-4 phono preamplifier, which was rated Class C in the April 2002 list (Vol.25 No.4, p.100). This rating was suggested by Michael Fremer, who had reviewed the model in our January issue. Unfortunately, while…
Wes Phillips explains that Adcom is one of those companies that is easy to take for granted. "To break through our complacency, Adcom would have to produce an outright unlistenable turkey—or a product that raised the bar so high that any audio manufacturer would get a hernia just thinking about raising it again."
Has the bar been sufficiently raised? Read Wes's equipment report on the Adcom GFP-750 preamplifier to find out. A hint from Wes: "Well, brace yourself, Bridget—Adcom's GFP-750 is a solid-state preamplifier/passive line controller that will demolish your expectations."
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Texas Instruments has released a new chip that advances the performance of high-resolution digital audio while limiting consumers' ability to enjoy it.
This seemingly paradoxical situation is part of the design of the TSB43CA43A, a second-generation device in the company's "iceLynx" family of products. The TSB43CA43A (also called the "iceLynx Micro") enables the transfer of high sample-rate digital audio data between A/V receivers and DVD-audio/Super Audio CD players—including multichannel material—using only a single IEEE 1394 FireWire cable.
It's a big leap in installation elegance…
We were startled to receive an email announcement recently informing us that Scot Markwell, long-time set-up and equipment maven for The Abso!ute Sound's erstwhile editor Harry Pearson, had joined the staff at www.themusic.com to manage its Gear Shop division.
Markwell, an Air Force veteran and audio lifer, has been widely acknowledged as one of the leading turntable set-up technicians in the industry, as well as an audio generalist, familiar with a staggering range of audio exotica of every stripe. After all, it was his job to tweak and fine-tune the best of the best for Pearson himself—a…