R U Ready to Rock?
Hot Licks: Add another title to UmixIt'shttp://stereophile.com/news/032105umixit/">UmixIt's; catalog of DualDisc Enhanced DVD/CDs: Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's eponymous solo album, his first since 1984.
Radio Finding New Paths to Your Ears
With new high-end audio formats hitting the shelves and MP3 and Napster dominating the online music news, developments in the world of radio have taken a back seat lately. But two announcements this week offer a peek at where the broadcast business might be headed.
Radio Stations Must Pay for Webcasts, Copyright Office Rules
American radio stations which stream music programming over the Internet may be facing substantial outlays in royalty fees paid to record companies, under a December 8 ruling by the US Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress. After months of legal wrangling, the office decided that radio stations are just as liable for such fees as other music sites. "Transmissions of a broadcast signal over a digital communications network such as the Internet are not exempt from copyright liability," the ruling states.
Radio, Radio
Traditional music radio has been taking a beating since the mid '80s, when declining audience numbers entered a ratings freefall. Reader Bard-Alan Finlan argued in his Soapboxhttp://www.stereophile.com/showsoap.cgi?276">Soapbox; a few weeks back that perhaps digital radio could cure the market's over-the-air terrestrial broadcast ills, if only it were implemented with adequate bandwidth and marketed correctly.
Radio, Radio, Everywhere
Radio has been getting a new lease on life, with Sirius and XM satellite services, DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), and Internet "stations" popping up in the tens of thousands. With the Clear Channelfication of North America's FM and AM airwaves, many would argue that the timing couldn't be better for launching new broadcast technologies.
Radiohead's Revolutionary Rainbows
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.
Raidho 2.1 Speaker Premieres as Naim Streams
Unique circumstances conspired to make the March 15 US debut of Raidho's handsome 2.1, 2.5-way floorstanding loudspeaker ($28,000/pair) at AudioVision San Francisco an unusual event. Despite ample planning on everyone's part, US Customs, which has never been known for putting audiophiles first, held up delivery of Raidho's new babies until the afternoon of the demo. Did they perhaps think that the "Raid" in Raidho was code for a terrorist plot?
Due to this unforeseeable snafu, what a very full house of eager audiophiles heard was not the Raidho 2.1 in all its glory, but a literally out-of-the-crate speaker whose drivers, capacitors, and circuits, by all accounts, had undergone only something like 5 hours of break-in. There was nothing that even Nordost's Lars Christensen, creator of the most masterfully conceived and executed audio demos I have ever witnessed, could do about the fact that the speaker could only provide an tantalizing albeit incomplete indication of its ultimate potential.
RAM Goes Online
Roger A. Modjeski's RAM Labs and Music Reference electronics now have a home on the Internet.
Rath's Unnatural Specimens Spoofs Technology
Audio nuts with a sense of humor and an interest in art will enjoy the works by sculptor Alan Rath currently on display at the Haines Gallery in downtown San Francisco.
Ray Charles 1930-2004
All of us at Stereophile were saddened by the death of Ray Charles. The giant of music passed away Thursday, June 10 at his home in Beverly Hills, surrounded by friends and family. He was 73.