Jon Iverson

It's been a long wait, but we're finally starting to see high-bandwidth IEEE 1394 digital audio connections on the back of DVD-A/SACD players (see related story), as first hinted at by Yamaha five years ago. A key ingredient for getting the beleaguered 1394 (or FireWire or iLink) format moving was the inclusion of copy-protection protocols that restrict unfettered consumer use of the digital audio content.

The entertainment industry has been crying wolf about the impending death of its collective livelihood since the first recording device hit the market decades ago. In spite of those dire predictions, reel-to-reel tape decks, cassette recorders, and VCRs hardly dented sales, and may in fact have contributed to unprecedented world-wide growth.

Joe Abrams has an impressive audio resume. "I've been on the manufacturer's side of the desk since 1979," he says. That's when he started as national sales manager for Monster Cable. A few years later found Abrams as director of sales at Sumiko, and then in 1987 he started as VP of sales at Threshold. In 1991 Abrams joined cable start-up Tara Labs and quickly helped them establish a dealer network before moving on to MIT.

Earlier this year, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) tried something a little different and ran the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas during the week, starting on a Tuesday, instead of in its normal slot over the weekend. The hope was that the show would not compete with the normally crowded Las Vegas weekends, and would offer showgoers more flexibility in finding hotel rooms and taxi cabs.