News

James Bongiorno needs your help. The legendary electronics designer, whose pioneering work with fully complementary solid-state amplifiers has become part of engineering's standard lexicon, is battling liver cancer.

Quality Audio Video (14697 E Easter Avenue, Suite A, Centennial, CO 80112) is presenting an evening with legendary audio engineer John Curl on Saturday night, October 6 at 7pm.

John Curl is one of the most-respected circuit designers of all time and, since 1989, the creative genius behind Parasound's high-end audio amplifiers and preamplifiers. Since the mid 1970s, Curl has left a trail of landmark hardware across the industry . . . the classic Mark Levinson JC-2, the SOTA head amplifier, and his own Vendetta preamplifier.

Meet audio legend Richard Vandersteen at three exclusive events on the West Coast. As the founder and head engineer of Vandersteen Audio he is renowned for groundbreaking speaker designs that have helped define high-end audio for decades. He's offering audio enthusiasts a unique chance to hear from him firsthand at these special events.

Saturday, May 13, starting at 1pm and running late into the evening, JS Audio (4919 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814) is holding an Open House. Special guests will include Peter McGrath and Bill Peugh of Wilson Audio; John Quick and Trent Suggs of dCS; Bill McKiegan of Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems; Michael Taylor of Nordost; Michael Manousselis of Dynaudio North America; and a representative from Audio Research.

One argument for the record industry's disappointing sales last year is a combination of high prices for official CD releases coupled with cheap prices for computer-based CD recorders and CD-R blanks. It doesn't look like retail CD prices will be coming down anytime soon, but luckily for the music business, CD-R prices are going up.

Heads up! Not long after the sellout of both Decca Classics' First Collector's Edition box set of 50 Mercury Living Presence CD reissues, and their box set of six 180gm LP reissues, both drawn from the famed Mercury Living Presence catalog, Collector's Edition 2 arrives on May 14. The CD box's 55 titles include two first-CD issue rarities: Antal Dorati's 1953 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra mono recording of Stravinsky's groundbreaking ballet, The Rite of Spring, and one of the final Mercury Living Presence recordings, John Corigliano's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The Corigliano recording premiere, performed by pianist Hilde Somer and the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Victor Alessandro, is paired with a close to 17-minute interview with Corigliano, conducted by Paul Hume one year after the concerto's 1968 premiere, and the Paregon to Richard Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica, Op.73.

The world's two largest and most active music clubs may become one if preliminary talks between their parent companies bear fruit. Time">http://www.timewarner.com/">Time Warner Inc. and Germany's Bertelsmann">http://www.bertelsmann.de">Bertelsmann AG have conducted discussions with that outcome in mind, according to several reports appearing in late April.