<I>T+A adds tubes and analog to SACD:</I> German high-end manufacturer T+A has announced its new, tubed, $9500 D10 SACD/CD player. The D10 incorporates many of the same components found in the company's SACD 1245R, including the disc mechanism and DAC However, the D10 contains two more powerful power supply sections, a toroidal transformer with a secondary switching section for its digital parts, and a high-voltage mains section with 100,000µF of reservoir capacity for its analog tube stage.
On Tuesday, March 29, 2005, the US Supreme Court heard the oral arguments for the case of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. This was widely covered in the mainstream news media, as well as all over the Web, but none of the synopses of the case did true justice to the give-and-take of the arguments, as I discovered this week when I stumbled upon a .pdf transcription of the complete oral arguments.
As Jon Iverson points out in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/041105serving">another posting this week</A>, a surprising number of readers expect downloads to be a viable music acquisition option in the very near future. Perhaps it's closer than we think.
Just look at the dates and you'll see a legacy that essentially spans the entire history of electrical music reproduction. That's fitting. In his career—or more properly, many careers—Irving M. ("Bud") Fried all but embodied that era.
If you're an audiophile—and let's face it, who else would be reading this—then you know what <I>any</I> hard-core audioweenie would do when visiting a strange city. Visit the hi-fi shops, of course.
They say you never forget your first time. For me, it was an Audio Research SP-6B that had been heavily modified by Analogique in NYC—which meant, among other things, that yellow capacitors shunted other yellow capacitors all the way up to the top plate. That first taste of the High End—prior to that, you might say my face had been pressed against the window—was definitely love at first listen. That SP-6B was warm yet detailed, and I ended up building a system around it that at least one friend described as a huge musical wet kiss.
<I>Note: These photos are a companion scrapbook to Wes Phillips' <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/405stph.html">eNewsletter report</A>.</I>
Yamaha Electronics Corporation has introduced four new A/V digital home-theater receivers equipped with XM Satellite Radio capability (XM-Ready). The $649.95 RX-V757, $549.95 RX-V657, $449.95 RX-V557, and $349.95 RX-V457 will allow users to plug an XM Connect-and-Play home antenna into the Yamaha XM-Ready A/V receiver and activate the XM service to receive 150-plus digital radio channels—no other accessories or installation are required. Using XM's industry-leading chipset technology, as well as a new proprietary chip and signaling protocol, the XM Connect-and-Play home antenna is capable of receiving XM's satellite and terrestrial signals, in addition to performing channel tuning, decoding, and audio transmission functions.