Stereophile Staff

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.atcsd.com">American Technology Corp.</A> (ATC) announced that three additional patents on its loudspeaker technologies have been granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10616/">previous story</A>). The company also announced that it has acquired the rights to "strategic" patents from the former Carver Corp. covering a variety of audio reproduction and amplifier technologies.

As an audio journalist "servicing" the High End (ouch!), I surf the Web waves to see what's going on on the various audio newsgroups and bulletin boards. Sometimes the Net resembles the Concorde going down, the crash video'd by a passing French motorist: Ashen faces pressed against car windows driving slowly by to check out the carnage.

I have a passion for great speaker designs at affordable prices, and with modern driver, crossover, and cabinet technologies making innovative strides, many serious high-end speaker designers are turning their attentions to coming up with the next great budget speaker. All audiophiles need affordable speakers, whether to recommend to friends to lure them into our hobby or to set up multiple, less costly systems in our own houses. I currently run a main reference system, a vacation-house system, a recording-studio system, a computer system, a portable system I take to parties, a car system, <I>and</I> an office system. I insist on having music playing constantly, wherever I am, unless my wife or son tells me to turn it off&mdash;which happens increasingly often these days.

Having evaluated any number of integrated amplifiers in the past year or so, I've repeatedly been impressed by the ways in which designers build versatility and sonic distinction into their single-box designs. In matching those that sounded and measured the best&mdash;such as the tubed E.A.R. V20 (October 1999) and the solid-state <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/329/">Magnum Dynalab MD 208 receiver</A> (January 2001)&mdash;with appropriate speakers and source components, I was able to attain high-resolution musicality with a minimum of fuss. Crave high-end sound but require even less complexity? You could dispense with interconnects altogether by integrating a high-quality CD player into a remote-controlled receiver, as Linn has with the diminutive <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/307/">Classik</A&gt; that I reviewed last November.

The next <A HREF="http://www.homeentertainment-expo.com">Home Entertainment Expo</A> (formerly the Hi-Fi Show) will be in New York May 11-13. We usually run several live forums covering the gamut of audiophile topics, including the popular "grill the editors" sessions. Are there any audio topics you'd particularly like to see covered this year?

According to the latest statistics from the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA), overall consumer electronics sales for 2000 posted gains of 7% over 1999, reaching $8 billion. However, overall audio sales at the end of 2000 dropped as compared with November 1999, declining 5%, with $854 million in revenues for the month. The CEA says that sales to dealers of separate audio components also declined in November dipping around 4% as compared to the same period in 1999, but overall, sales of separate audio components have had a positive year rising 7% to $1.4 billion in revenue thus far.

Drummer Billy Higgins started his remarkable career backing up R&B musicians such as Amos Milburn and Bo Diddley around the LA area before embarking on his jazz path with the Jazz Messengers (led by Don Cherry and saxophonist James Clay) and Dexter Gordon. But it was his association with Ornette Coleman, starting in the mid 1950s, that electrified the jazz world and made him a force to reckon with. His first recordings, with Coleman and Red Mitchell, were released in 1958. In 1959, he performed with both Coleman in New York and Thelonious Monk in San Francisco, and from that point on, he never stopped recording or touring.