News

Only a few days remain until Christmas. Trees, tinsel, twinkling lights, and . . . tunes. It's the audiofool's most dreaded time of the year, when he once again suffers through his nine-thousandth experience of Bing Crosby crooning "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Sheer torture.

Rolling Stone is going head-to-head with MTV. Last week, Wenner Media, Inc, announced a partnership with JamTV to create a music site on the Web. Wenner is the parent company of Rolling Stone magazine. JamTV is an eight-month-old Internet start-up that broadcasts live concerts.

More high-end audio company musical chairs: Howard Schilling, co-founder and Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Camelot">http://www.camelot-tech.com">Camelot Technology, will now also join Genesis">http://www.gen-tech.com">Genesis Technologies as National Sales Manager after having "quietly" worked with them in the past.

It's been a tough couple of years for those who like to make digital copies of audio recordings. What started with SCMS copy-restriction schemes in DAT machines has quickly spilled over into current digital formats such as those proposed for DVD-Audio. But a glimmer of hope has shone through the haze.

Don Bouchard of Cello forwarded this e-mail to us, which outlines the new CE labeling requirements. These are so draconian that we felt the high-end audio community needs to be made aware of them!

Who wouldn't want to know what's in store for the extreme audio devotee? So we rolled a special set of aluminum Tiptoes, read the auspicious signs (you've got to understand how the tips point), and divined our first set of predictions. We'll have more next week, if the Mpingo dots line up just right.

It only makes sense. PBShttp://www.pbs.org">PBS;, the most visible national broadcaster of classical-music-related programs, has decided to launch its own classical-music label. According to a recent story in Variety, several major record labels are competing for the rights to distribute the new label. It's common in the music business for larger labels to distribute smaller ones, and an association with the new PBS label is seen as a feather in the cap of whoever makes the deal.