Napster Wins a Round
Napsterhttp://www.napster.com">Napster; may have finally won a round in court. The Federal District judge in the music industry's ongoing case against the file-sharing service has allowed for the possibility that the plaintiffs may have abused their own copyright privileges in the launch of their online music services, MusicNet and pressplay.
NARM Releases Annual Survey Results for 1998
The National">http://www.narm.com">National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) has released its Annual Survey Results for the 1998 business year, indicating that gross dollar volume for all music products grew by 10%, to $9.69 billion, with the CD market (83.3%, or $8.1 billion) continuing to build on its dominance. The report reveals that DVD sales "literally exploded in 1998," up a staggering 400% to $259 million.
Nashua, NH Dealer Event Saturday Afternoon
Fidelis AV (460 Amherst Street) is holding a Technics Open House, Head-fi meet, and REL subwoofer demo on Saturday December 5 from noon5pm. Bill Voss from Technics will be presenting and discussing Technics' new C700 Premium Series components (above). This series features a D/A integrated amplifier, a network player and CD player, as well as the new, linear-phase, point-sound-source SB-C700 loudspeaker, which is favorably reviewed in the forthcoming January issue of Stereophile. Dave Shultz will be demonstrating REL Acoustics subwoofers, and Vinnie Rossi will be showing his headphone amplifiers.
Nashville Revival Goes Hollywood, Returns to Roots
Country music reached the peak of its popularity six years ago, when it claimed 18.7% of the recorded-music audience. Since then, it has steadily declined to its present 14.1%, according to the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America's 1998 Consumer Profile. Reasons for the decline include the increasing crossover of country stars into pop and rock styles, a phenomenon that has broadened many artists' reach and made acts like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain household names among folks who may not previously have paid much attention to country. Crossing over, unfortunately, also dilutes the support of traditional music fans. Apart from the twang in the vocals, much current "country" music sounds amazingly like the rock and pop of 10-15 years ago.
National Public Radio Launches Lost & Found Sound
In January, National">http://www.npr.org/">National Public Radio launched an ambitious series chronicling the history of the 20th century in sound. Lost & Found Sound began with the first half of a two-part piece on the father of audio technology, entitled "The Rise and Fall of Thomas Alva Edison." Part two, which examines Edison's competition, will be broadcast this week.
National Women Conductors Initiative Announced
June, 1998---"It's time to stop wasting the talents of brilliant American musicians because of their gender." And with that, an anonymous donor has given one million dollars to establish The National Women Conductors Initiative.
Naxos abandons SACD?
After learning from John Sunier, publisher of Audiophile Audition, that Naxos, the largest classical label in the world, was expected to cease producing SACDs and DVD-As, I checked with their national publicist, Mark A. Berry. He in turn sought confirmation from Naxos' founder and chairman, Klaus Heymann.
Naxos Blankets the Internet
Now that more and more music lovers are turning to the Internet to purchase CDs, DVDs, and downloadable files#151;see WP's story">http://www.stereophile.com/news/062507itunes3/">story on iTunes this week—Naxos isn't taking any chances. The world's largest classical music label, whose US branch, Naxos of America, also claims to be the #1 independent distributor of classical music in the US, has recently set up multiple websites to lure music lovers into the fold.
Naxos Blu-ray Breakthrough
The world's largest classical label, Naxos of America, has released its first Blu-ray music package. The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard contains three Blu-ray audio discs plus one three-hour Blu-ray videodisc that together hold 15 hours of music. All performances are by Tom Beghin, a baroque specialist and musicologist based at McGill University. Sound engineer Martha De Francisco, an Associate Professor at McGill, recorded the performances in high-resolution (24-bit/96kHz) PCM sound.
Naxos Covers the High-Rez Bases
Some months back, a poll at the Naxos of America websitehttp://www.naxos.com">website; asked visitors about their preferences among high-resolution and multichannel formats. At that time, Naxos had been releasing DVD-As (and DVDs) in the US, but only released SACDs elsewhere.