News

Cirrus">http://www.cirrus.com">Cirrus Logic Inc. has introduced two new high-performance analog-to-digital converters. The CS5361 and CS5351 are said to deliver professional sound quality for audio/video receivers (AVRs) and DVD recorders (DVD-Rs) at mainstream consumer prices. The new chips are OEM-priced at $4.95 and $3.95 respectively, in quantities of 10,000 or more.

John Atkinson heads across America's great plains toward Kansas to engineer a brand-new recording that he and Les Berkley document in A">http://www.stereophile.com//features/575/">A Mosaic of Music: Stereophile's Clarinet Quintet CD. For the new CD, JA returns again to Chad Kassem's audio Mecca, noting that "105 takes of the Mozart and 102 takes of the Brahms later, we had gotten everything down on tape in two days of intense music-making."

Home">http://www.homeentertainment-expo.com">Home Entertainment 2002 is set to open to the public as planned, May 31–June 2, 2002, at the Hilton New York & Towers Hotel in New York City. Show attendees will be treated to numerous free educational seminars and musical performances from a dozen popular jazz, classical, and contemporary recording artists.

At the start of his review of the Balanced">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/570/">Balanced Audio Technology VK-D5 CD player, Jonathan Scull observes, "Man, has Balanced Audio Technology come a long way in a short time." Scull goes in-depth with the VK-D5 to explain just what he's found.

Where Pogs and Pokemon once ruled, HitClipshttp://www.tigertoys.com/newhitclips/">HitClips; have taken over. HitClips are hot. So hot, in fact, that Hasbro">http://www.hasbro.com">Hasbro Incorporated's Tiger Electronics division has sold more than 20 million of them at $3.99 each. That's $80 million gross on a single product, a figure that probably no high-end audio company has ever reached.

The Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has requested increased federal funding for the ongoing struggle against the pirating of recorded music. On Tuesday, April 23, the organization's executives asked the US House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee for more money to pursue pirates. Such allocations come directly from tax revenues, according to reports from Washington.

By several common measures, the American economy appears to be emerging from its first recession in a decade. On Friday, April 26, the US Commerce Department reported economic growth of 5.8% (annual rate) for the first quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP), generally considered the broadest indicator of the economy's health, was the strongest since the final quarter of 1999. The 5.8% rate is especially encouraging in view of the 1.7% rate during the fourth quarter of 2001. The US Labor Department also reported a decline in first-time applications for unemployment benefits during the last week of April.