Industry Update
Krell restructures S&M: Dean Roumanis, Krell's Chief Operating Officer, announced March 14 that the company had restructured its sales and marketing department to "enable [Krell] to continue to grow our business by maximizing the skills of our personnel."
Industry Update
Meet the new boss: Harman Specialty Group, the division of Harman Consumer Group responsible for the Mark Levinson, Revel, and Lexicon brands, has a new president. John Batliner is a 12-year veteran of the company, and, most recently, executive vice-president of HSG. Wayne Morris, current president of the company, will remain active until the end of April.
Industry Update
Web-surf's up: Cable manufacturer Stereovox has a new, improved, easy to navigate websitehttp://www.stereovox.com/">website;. We're just sayin', is all.
Industry Update
Totally new Heads: HeadRoom has released new versions of its Total">http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/1204headroom/">Total BitHead and Total AirHead headphone amplifiers. Both models feature new, quieter volume potentiometers and improved audio chips for superior sound.
Industry Update: Immedia Distributes Lehmann; Audio-Technica Introduces Ripping Turntable
Lehmann Audio: Immediahttp://www.immediasound.com/">Immedia;, the Berkeley, CA–based distributor of Lyra cartridges, Finite Element stands, Sonics by Joachim Gerhard loudspeakers, and Spiral Groove turntables, has become Lehmann Audio's US distributor.
Industry Update: Is It CEDIA Yet?
XM/Sirius: Did we just hear the other shoe drop on the XM Satellite Radio/Sirius Satellite Radio merger? On July 25, XM founder and CEO Hugh Panero announced he would leave the company in August. The company named COO Nate Davis president and interim CEO.
Infiniti's New "Studio On Wheels"
Some days I feel like Stereophile's designated audio antichrist. After all, I wrote an automotive audio column for the magazine about 10 years back—a feature that prompted more than one reader to send the pages carrying my column back to Santa Fe as "not what I subscribed for"—and I reviewed the http://stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/ ">iPod. So, not really being a glutton for punishment, I wasn't wildly enthusiastic when Edelman account executive Stefani Gudis tendered an invitation to hear the Infiniti/Bose "Studio On Wheels" model G35 sedan. It wasn't that I didn't think that car audio could be a valid musical experience, I simply had been disappointed too many times by car manufacturers touting "audiophile" sound packages, which, upon examination, were probably more about preventing aftermarket add-ons by car audio installers. BTDT, as the kids text-message.
Injunction Issued Against Rio
In a story">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10283/">story last week, we covered the efforts of the Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to prevent portable MP3 players from entering the market without copy-protection measures in place. On August 16, a federal court entered a temporary restraining order (TRO) to enjoin the distribution and sale of Diamond">http://www.diamondmm.com/">Diamond Multimedia's Rio PMP300 portable MP3 recording device.
InnerFidelity Launched With Tyll Hertsens As Editor-in-Chief
Keith Pray, Publisher of Source Interlink Media web sites, is thrilled to announce the April preview launch of InnerFidelity, a new website dedicated to playing well with personal audio.
Innovative Innovative Audio
Innovative's Elliot Fishkin (center) flanked by Wilson Audio Specialties' Peter McGrath (left) and VTL's Luke Manley (right).
As we reported below, Manhattan retailers Lyric and Stereo Exchange decided not to participate in the New York Audio & AV Show, instead holding standalone events at their stores. There are valid reasons for this decision, not the least of which is that the manufacturers are spared the crapshoot of setting up their systems in rooms with unknowable acoustics. By contrast, every dem room at a retailer is, or should be, an optimized machine for making audio components sound at their best, which surely is the point. However, if every retailer decided to do this, there would be insufficient support for the main show to take place. There would thus be no shows at all, an example of what has been called the "Tragedy of the Commons."
Props, therefore, to Innovative Audio, who both participated in the NY Audio & AV Show with passive and active rooms, but who also invited Showgoers to their premises after the Show closed Friday and Saturday evenings to take a listen under more controlled conditions.