A Yamaha 5000-Series Listening Party in LA
Thursday March 19th, 5–8pm: Shelley's Stereo, 22102 Clarendon St. in Woodland Hills, CA, will host representatives from Yamaha for a Yamaha 5000-series listening party.
A/V Retailing Consolidation in the Works
Last week, Florida consumer-electronics retailer Sound Advice announced that it has reached an agreement in principle to acquire Scottsdale, Arizona–based Showcase Home Entertainment, LLC, a privately held "upscale" retailer of consumer electronics and custom design services. Sound Advice, founded in 1974, currently operates 24 Sound Advice stores and four specialty stores under the Bang & Olufsen name throughout Florida.
AAC in the Chips
Chip manufacturer ESS">http://www.esstech.com">ESS Technology is no stranger to audiophiles interested in new formats. It was responsible for one of the first "universal" SACD/DVD-Audio decoding">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11059/">decoding chips and more recently was the supplier of a special-purpose">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11296/">special-purpose chip for Linn's SACD "Silver Disk Engine" designs.
AACS: "We Have Not Been Hacked—Just Our Players"
Okay, now things are getting confusing. Hot on the heels of his announcementhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/010107hacked/">announcement; that he had hacked HD DVD's Advanced Access Content System (AACS) digital rights management (DRM), muslix64 claimed to have done the same to Blu-Ray's implementation, with the help of anti-DRM crusader Janvitos. You can read the whole saga at the Doom9">http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120869">Doom9 forum but we'll just give you the juicy bits: "In less than 24 hours, without any Blu-ray equipment, but with the help of Janvitos, I managed to decrypt and play a Blu-ray media file using my known-plaintext attack."
Aardvark Boutique Audio in Ontario
I ran across the poster above in Canada HiFi magazine: an announcement of the launch of a new audio store with an evening of vinyl playback. Located in the town of Orangeville, Ontario (population 30,000, about an hour's drive from Toronto), the store, with the intriguing name of Aardvark Boutique Audio, hadn't opened yet, but the event, taking place in the Orangeville Opera House, promised "Canadian Musicians On VinylIn Amazing Hi Fi Sound." I had to go and check it out.
Aaron Neville Reveals His Devotion to DVD-Audio
Following on the heels of its announcement">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10863/">announcement last week of the first commercially available DVD-Audio disc (Swingin' for the Fences, by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band), Silverline">http://www.silverlinerecords.com">Silverline Records says that Aaron Neville will become the first major artist to release an album in the format. Silverline expects that, on October 24, Neville's solo album Devotion will be released on DVD-A. The disc will also include audio tracks compatible with standard DVD players.
Abbey Road Has a New Number: 801
Bowers & Wilkins and Abbey Road Studios have announced the 801 Abbey Road Limited Edition loudspeaker, a model that commemorates the companies' 45-year relationship. Production is capped at 140 pairs.
Absolute Multimedia Buys Hi-Fi Plus
In the December 2005 issue of the UK magazine Hi-Fi Plus, editor Roy Gregory announces that Absolute Multimedia, Inc., publisher of The Absolute Sound and The Perfect Vision magazines, has purchased the British audio journal.
Acoustic Sounds' Major Vinyl Expansion
Just three months after buying 13 vintage record presses, Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds (above) has purchased The Mastering Lab (TML), the legendary facility of Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer, Doug Sax, who died of cancer on April 2 at the age of 78...
Added to the Archives
"You'd be hard-pressed to find a company more protective of its reputation than Krell," says Wes Phillips, as he heads off to evaluate the Krell">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/638/">Krell KAV-300cd CD player. WP ponders whether that reputation is still intact as the company tries to save its customers some money.