Audiophiles interested in experimenting with upconverting the digital data on their CDs to higher resolutions will find a recent announcement from the Netherlands of interest. Dutch company <A HREF="http://www.eximius.nl">Eximius</A> revealed last week a new product tagged "DVD+Audio Creator" for converting CDs to either upsampled PCM or compressed MP2 files.
<B>IRON AND WINE: <I>Our Endless Numbered Days</I></B><BR>
Sub Pop 630 (CD). 2004. Sam Beam, Brian Deck, prods., engs. AAD? TT: 44:49<BR>
Performance <B>****</B><BR>
Sonics <B>****</B>
"The Sonus Faber Cremona is the finest cabinet-built speaker I have heard for under $10,000/pair," wrote the usually reticent Sam Tellig in the January 2003 <I>Stereophile</I>. "<I>Bravissimo...Molto, molto bene</I>" he added to his paean of praise for the Italian speaker manufacturer's founder and chief engineer, Franco Serblin.
Its future as a format may also be debatable, but does DVD-Audio have the sonic goods? Have you been able to spend much time with DVD-Audio? If so, what do you think about the way it sounds?
Apple Computer is riding a wave that shows no sign of breaking.
Bits is bits? In the December 1990 issue, John Atkinson explored in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/reference/1290jitter">"Jitter, Bits, & Sound Quality"</A> why digital audio turns out to be a complicated process. He writes, "As my violin teacher used to say, 'The right note in the wrong place is the wrong note.'" And so it is with digital data, as JA explains in this groundbreaking report.
Electronics retailers may be bouncing back from a long slump, according to a couple of recent reports.
As <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/011904roundup/index.html">promised</A> earlier in January, <A HREF="http://www.wmg.com">Warner Music Group</A> has announced a major restructuring that it hopes will put it in better shape to compete in the "challenging business environment of today's music industry." The move comes after the recent closing of WMG's $2.6 billion acquisition by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and a group of investors.