News

In his review of the Soliloquy">http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/459/">Soliloquy 5.3 loudspeaker, Kalman Rubinson says that when he heard a pair, his first thoughts were, "Gotta get my hands on these!" After careful listening, did the speaker live up to Rubinson's first impressions? KR tells the whole story.

With worldwide demand for semiconductors lower than it has been in many years, Philips">http://www.philips.com">Philips Electronics NV has announced an organizational streamlining that may cost 4000 workers their jobs.

George Harrison, the youngest Beatle, and the least comfortable with the band's renown, died November 29 at 58, following a battle with cancer. Harrison, one of rock's most distinctive guitarists, was also a songwriter and singer of the first water. It could be said that it was his misfortune to be the third songwriter in a band that featured the two most significant tunesmiths of his era. On the other hand, without Harrison's unique, exquisitely tasteful, musically wide-ranging guitar playing—which, in its consistent submission to the requirements of the individual songs, rarely drew attention to itself—Lennon and McCartney might have just been another band.

Purported financial">http://www.stereophile.com/news/11074/">financial difficulties haven't prevented Tower">http://www.towerrecords.com">Tower Records from developing a massive new flagship store in Los Angeles. Occupying more than 33,000 square feet, the new store in the renovated Sherman Oaks Galleria features a "state-of-the-art" performance stage and a Super Audio CD demonstration room.

Record label attempts at restricting the potential uses of their CDs have hit another bump in the antipiracy road. Music label BMG had announced earlier this year that it would try to find ways to restrict its CDs, in an effort to stem piracy and the trading of MP3 files. But those plans appear to have backfired, so far.

The economic downturn doesn't appear to be hurting Tweeter">http://www.tweeter.com">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group.

Sad news this week: We heard from Ken Kessler of the passing of legendary UK engineer Stanley Kelly, who died in his sleep on November 13, after suffering a stroke the previous week. Stan would have been 89 next month. While he was, of course, the "Kelly" of the classic Kelly Ribbon Tweeter, he was also one of the founders of Hi-Fi News and was the only person to have been listed on the English magazine's masthead since Vol.1 No.1, the June 1956 issue. In recent years, Stan had developed a series of high-sensitivity speakers for UK manufacturer Musical Fidelity.