A substantial chunk of the loss was attributed by outside experts to EMI's $80 million contract with pop diva Mariah Carey, whose recent movie Glitter came and went in a heartbeat after it was almost universally excoriated by critics. EMI had high hopes for the soundtrack album, which hasn't performed any better than the film. The company expects new releases from Garth…
search
Citing poor sales in North and South America, EMI reported that it lost $77.6 million during the first six months of its business year, ended September 30, compared to a loss of $44.3 million for the same period last year.
The most entertaining part of the 44th Annual Grammy Awards wasn't the "Lady Marmalade" production number that opened the show or Alicia Keys' awkward tango later. It was Recording Academy President Michael Greene's rant about the criminal enterprise of electronic music swapping, a phenomenon that, he warned, threatens the music industry's very existence.
After cursory praise for that night's winners of "Lifetime Achievement Awards," Greene segued into a riff so off the wall that it provoked hoots from some in the audience. Like George Bush, Sr. demonstrating the nation's drug problem…
Last week, USA Digital Radio, a partnership formed in 1991 with CBS Corporation and Gannett Co. Inc., announced the filing of a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to permit digital radio broadcasting using In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) technology. The petition begins the process of acceptance of the USA Digital Radio IBOC system as the DAB transmission standard for the United States. According to a statement from Digital Radio, "the IBOC technology being developed by USA Digital Radio offers the most comprehensive digital radio transmission…
The sales picture has improved for Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, but not the bottom line. The Canton, MA–based retailer reported a 4% increase in sales for the second quarter ended March 31, with comparable store results up 3%. The increase lifted Tweeter's total revenue to $189.3 million, but the company reported an operating loss of $4.6 million, almost twice the $2.5 million loss posted in the same period the previous year.
The most recent quarterly total included $5.1 million in "non-cash compensation charges." Removing that from the calculation, Tweeter's quarterly loss would be $…
Back in the 1990s, I lusted mightily for the large ESP speakers with their tall, slim shapes and their angled driver panels. A large-room demo of the Concert Grands with Sonic Frontiers electronics still reverberates in my memory. Unfortunately, just as I evolved to the point where I could consider buying a pair of Concert Grands, the company folded its tents. Recently, I heard a rumor that ESP might be returning, and an email exchange with founder and designer Sean McCaughan has confirmed the good news.
The vehicle of ESP's return will be a redesign of the Concert Grand and of the company'…
New York's ailing Bottom Line music club has attracted some heavyweight help. Rock icon Bruce Springsteen and Viacom president Mel Karmazin have joined a campaign begun by New York–based satellite radio service Sirius Radio to save the legendary venue.
Both Springsteen and Karmazin have offered "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to save the club from closure by its landlord, New York University. The Greenwich Village club owes $185,000 in back rent. Some of its problems stem from a prolonged drop-off in business following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that leveled the World…
Kalman Rubinson fires up the Sonic Frontiers Line 2 line preamplifier, commenting, "I began this review grudgingly because I'd made a decision a while back to no longer pursue vacuum-tube electronics." But it's where KR ends up after months of listening that counts.
Next, Wes Phillips bolts the Naim ARO tonearm and Armageddon turntable power supply to his trusty Linn turntable, asking, "What about someone else's vision of the perfect Linn LP12? What about Naim's power supply, the Armageddon? And just to make it even more interesting, what about upgrading the tonearm to Naim's ARO?"
…
The oldest verified surviving recording is an 1878 tin cylinder of a talking clock (you can hear it at tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm). There's just one problem, however; the recording's surface noise is so pronounced that you can barely hear the featured attraction. Chalk it up to age, imperfect recording media, poor storage, or even to the ravages of mold, but the facts remain the same—we're in danger of losing our audio patrimony: the hundreds of thousands of historical recordings from the dawn of recording.
The Library of Congress takes this impending crisis seriously enough to have entered…
Sharp Electronics has announced a new lineup of "one-bit" digital amplifiers that may herald a new generation of audio products.
The new amplifiers are based on Sharp's one-bit technology, introduced two years ago, and include two high-end designs: the SM-SX1 ($4500), and the DX-SX1 ($3000), both available now. Two one-bit compact systems, the SD-NX10 and the SD-SG11, each priced at around $1800, will appear in September.
Announced July 24, the digital amplifiers are similar to the top-of-the-line $16,000 SD-SX100, reviewed by Michael Fremer in the July 2000 issue of Stereophile. As…
Legislation establishing royalties to be paid by small webcasters is stalled in the US Senate until after the November elections.
The bill codifies rates already agreed to by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Voice of the Webcasters (VOW) organization, and was unanimously approved by the US House of Representatives on October 7. Its future is now in doubt after North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms placed a "hold" on it October 17, effective until after the Senate reconvenes on November 12, after elections. A hold is an informal delay.
Helms was the third…