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The Alexis Park

Packing for Vegas, I assured my wife that it might be cold but it would be a dry cold. Unfortunately, this has absolutely no truth when it is raining cats and dogs, so I stumbled into Quartet Marketing's room chilled and soaked. I felt as though things couldn't get any worse—and I was right. Stirling Trayle pulled a long espresso out of his machinetta and settled me down in front of a pair of the $1150/pair Amphion Heliums Robert J. Reina reviewed in the January Stereophile. Go juice and music: life immediately got better.

The music business is a $13-billion-a-year industry, but the high-end audio industry reaches only a tiny fraction of the music lovers that number represents. "Everybody loves music, so why don't they love specialty audio?" was the question addressed to a group of industry experts at one of a series of AudioCafe.com-sponsored">http://www.audiocafe.com/">AudioCafe.com-sponsored panel discussions on Friday, January 7, at the Alexis Park, during the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Secure">http://www.sdmi.org/">Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) will soon move into Phase II of its evaluation of digital audio watermarking, following listening tests conducted in early July at Sony's Whitfield Street Studios in London and administered by Sony VP of engineering Malcolm Davidson. A soon-to-be-published report from Paul Jessop of the International">http://www.ifpi.org/">International Federation of Phonograph Industries reveals that the participants in the tests—almost all of them audio-industry professionals or journalists—averaged just slightly better than 50% in their abilities to detect the watermarks.

Last week it was revealed that David Manley has resigned as president of Manley">http://www.manleylabs.com">Manley Laboratories and has assigned his total shares in the company to EveAnna Manley as part of an agreement signed June 10, 1999. EveAnna Manley has officially assumed the duties of president, CEO, and sole owner of Manley Laboratories, Inc. A press release states that David Manley is no longer associated or affiliated with Manley Laboratories, Inc., and that EveAnna Manley has been de facto operating CEO of the company since David Manley's departure in 1996.

The new year ushered in several significant personnel changes for the audio industry.

Classical music specialist Channel Classics, headquartered in the Netherlands, has begun releasing the first DSD-native, hybrid multichannel SACDs recorded in China. Issued under the Channel of China imprint, the first two titles, Ambush on All Sides (CCS-SA-80106), featuring Zhang Hong Yan on solo pipa, and Soliloquy at Cold Mountain Temple (CCS-SA-80406), with the China National Symphony Orchestra under Li Xin Cao, have recently reached the US. A third SACD, featuring Yu Hong Mei on erhu (CCS-SA-80206), is scheduled to reach European shelves at the end of September and the US three or four months later.

UPDATE: On Monday, February 9, Tower Records, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Industry observers had predicted the move in the weeks leading up to the filing. MTS, Inc., as the company is officially known, listed "more than $100 million of assets and more than $100 million of debts in its filing," according to a report from Reuters news service. "MTS expects to emerge from Chapter 11 within 45 to 60 days. It plans to swap $110 million of senior debt for $30 million of new senior notes and an 85% equity stake. Existing equity holders would retain a 15% stake," the report continued.