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Bernie Grundman at RMAF

John Atkinson First Published: Oct 21, 2007

A Show like last week's Rocky">http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2007">Rocky Mountain Audio Fest presents me with conflicts. As a member of the press I should be spending my time covering the Show. However, I am also spending my time as a participant, in this case giving a series">http://www.stereophile.com/news/100807rmaf/">series of presentations in which I allowed Showgoers the opportunity to listen to the hi-rez masters of many of my Stereophile recordings and compare them with CD and MP3 versions.

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Buy Stereophile CDs—Get a Free T-Shirt

Stephen Mejias First Published: Oct 14, 2007

Attention shoppers! With any purchase of $100 or more from our secure">http://ssl.blueearth.net/primedia/home.php">secure E-commerce page, we’ll be happy to include one wonderfully cool and comfy, XL Stereophile T-shirt, absolutely free of charge. Offer applies to orders of $100 or more before shipping and handling fees, and is only available while supplies last, so act now. Browse our large collection of CDs, LPs, and back issues and splurge on yourself, or get a little extra something special for your favorite audiophile—just in time for the holiday season!

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MartinLogan's Custom Shop; Hansen's Elixir.

Wes Phillips First Published: Oct 13, 2007

MartinLogan: MartinLoganhttp://www.martinlogan.com">MartinLogan; has launched its Custom">http://configurator.martinlogan.com">Custom Shop application, which will enable consumers to utilize a 3D model and a palette of finishes to configure custom loudspeakers. ML claims that its flagship Summit loudspeaker ($10,995/pair) can be ordered in 400,000 custom combinations. The consumer can chose everything from cabinet finish to the color of the screws on the rear panel, the company claims.

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Label Panic in the Year 2007

Wes Phillips First Published: Oct 13, 2007

In a week in which Radiohead released non-DRM digital files of its new recording, In">http://www.stereophile.com/news/100807radiohead/">In Rainbows, for whatever price consumers felt obliged to pay, and Madonna and Nine Inch Nails both announced they were going to release their own music without help from record labels, two of the big four labels had drastically different reactions to the new realities of music distribution.

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Hi-Rez Recording Dems at RMAF

Stereophile Staff First Published: Oct 07, 2007

That, somehow, the "absolute sound" of live music is locked up within the grooves or pits of the discs we play and can be retrieved in its entirety if only we had a a good enough playback system is one of the enduring myths in high-end audio. Yet the art of recording is just that, an art, and it is entirely possible that a better playback system will sound worse with some recordings. And with the mainstream press telling would-be audiophiles that low–bit-rate MP3s are of "CD quality" and that even CD is overkill for audiophile sound quality, why would anyone need high-resolution recordings?

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Labels Win $220,000 in Download Damages

Wes Phillips First Published: Oct 07, 2007

On October 4, a federal jury in Duluth, MN found Jammie Thomas liable for copyright infringement, imposing a damages assessment of $220,000 ($9250 for each of 24 songs). It was the first jury trial resulting from the series of lawsuits the recording industry began in September 2003. Since most of those suits were settled out of court (average settlement: $4000) or defaulted, Capitol Records v. Thomas was the rare case to actually go to court and in front of a jury. It was interesting in ways other than its seemingly high damages.

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Radiohead's Revolutionary Rainbows

Wes Phillips First Published: Oct 07, 2007

Radiohead, whose last recording, Hail to the Thief, debuted at number three on Billboard's top 200 chart in 2004, announced that its new recording, In Rainbows, will be available as a DRM-free download on October 10. The new twist, however, is that consumers can pay any amount they wish for it.

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ArkivMusic Resurrects Out-of-Print Warner Classics Titles

Jason Victor Serinus First Published: Oct 07, 2007

ArkivMusic.com has just signed a deal with Warner Classics to reissue, on demand, out-of-print recordings from Teldec, Erato, and Warner Classics. The site's first 300 offerings from the Warner USA catalog, available at the end of October, will join the more than 4000 other out-of-print titles from EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal Music Group, and two dozen independent classical music labels now available on demand from ArkivMusic on ArkivCD. An additional 1000 ArkivCD reissue titles should become available by the end of 2007.

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Meridian's F80 Comes to NYC

Wes Phillips First Published: Sep 30, 2007

On September 26, Showstoppers had its "digital holidays" event in Manhattan. If you aren't a member of the gadget press, you probably won't know about Showstoppers, but it's a press event that gathers all manner of gadgets, gizmos, and computer peripherals under one roof, adds in an open bar and free food, and invites anybody with a press credential to come mingle and ogle the new products. The events are well-run, well-attended, and almost never have much of interest for Stereophile readers.

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Amazon Offers Downloads Without DRM

Wes Phillips First Published: Sep 30, 2007

On September 25, Amazon announcedhttp://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&I…; that its Amazon">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/163856011">Amazon MP3 download store was open as a "public beta" test. Amazon claims it has "more than two million songs by more than 180,000 artists from over 20,000 major and independent labels," which makes it somewhat less diverse than Apple's iTunes Store, which claims six million songs. However, Amazon MP3 has a few advantages in its corner: its MP3s are higher-resolution, variable bit-rate 256kpbs with no digital rights management—and they are cheaper, 89–99¢ per track, as opposed to iTunes' 99¢ for its 128kbps AAC files (or $1.29 for iTunes+ files, which are DRM-free and 256kbps AAC files).

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