News

Bose Corporation announced today the acquisition of McIntosh Group, the parent company of high-end audio brands McIntosh and Sonus faber. The move aims to broaden Bose's offerings into the high-performance and luxury audio markets.

If it's the software that sells a new format, then several recent announcements bode well for both SACD and DVD-Audio. Last week, DTS announced plans to begin shipment of the first DVD-Audio music recordings produced by its company-owned DTS">http://www.dtsonline.com">DTS Entertainment record label by late February 2001. Also, the first multichannel SACD to be produced by a major label from an original multitrack master, Mike Oldfield's recently remastered 1971 classic Tubular Bells is due for release from Virgin Records in February 2001.

Soundings Fine Audio Video are having an open house Thursday, December 4, from 6 to 9pm, celebrating the Colorado debut of Boulder's 3060 and 2160 stereo amplifiers and the 2110 preamplifier. Representatives from Soundings and Boulder Amplifiers will be on hand to demonstrate and talk about these new products and to answer questions you may have about them. Adult beverages will be served alongside fine food provided by Great Northern Tavern. Click here for more details.

Retailer Audio Den (2845 Middle Country Road, Lake Grove, NY 11755) is holding an evening with Doug Henderson, President of Bowers & Wilkins, and Costa Koulisakis, Vice-President Customer Experience of Moon By Simaudio, on Saturday, October 29. There will be three opportunities to attend this event: 5:00pm, 6:30pm, and 8:00pm.

Beginning September 21, more than 50 music retailers will offer David Bowie's new album, hours . . ., as a digital download from their websites. Other companies have released promotional singles, but the event will be the first time an entire album has been offered by a record company over the Internet. The Internet release will run about two weeks, leading up to the October 5 debut of the album in stores. Bowie was one of the first major recording artists to venture onto the Internet, with his 1997 single, "Telling Lies."

On September 27, 2012, Stereophile Contributing Editor and choral conductor Erick Lichte was appointed Artistic Director of Vancouver's Chor Leoni Men's Choir, effective September 2013. Lichte previously served as the ensemble's Associate Conductor under founder and current Artistic Director, Diane Loomer, C.M. In that capacity, Lichte conducted the choir's close to 60 members to Europe this past summer, where they won 12 major awards at the 51st Seghizzi Concorso Internationale Di Canto Corale in Gorizia Italy.

On July 4, a Brazilian website apparently posted some tools that allowed users of InterVideo's">http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp">InterVideo's WinDVD to pull copy-protected data off DVD-Audio discs and store it on the user's hard drive rather than simply routing it to a sound card. According to Afterdawnhttp://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6597.cfm">Afterdawn;, the tools didn't "do the decryption themselves, [but] instead patched WinDVD to output the decrypted stream to disk instead of the sound card."