News

Sometimes, wonderful things go unnoticed. Thus did Stereophile miss that, in June 2007, at its 31st annual conference, in London, UK, the International Audio Engineering Society issued two Awards of Excellence in the category of Professional Engineering. One, which we learned about from a Minnetonka Audio press release, went to Dorian Records (see the May 2008 issue of Stereophile, pp.14–15). The other went to AIX">http://www.aixrecords.com">AIX Records of Southern California. The award is for John Gorka's The Gypsy Life, one of more than 50 high-resolution recordings available from AIX in DVD-Audio/Video surround sound and on two-channel CD. Most interesting is that both AES awards were for DVD-Audio projects.

Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. announced May 19 that it was acquiring online classical retailer ArkivMusic, LLC for $3 million in cash at closing and three annual payments of $500,000.

We have written about HDTracks.com previouslyhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/032308hdtracks/">previously;, but that was before the site went public. This morning David Chesky notified Stereophile that it is offering, for a limited time, a free "HDTracks">https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=register">"HDTracks Ultimate Download Experience."

Due to an error in laying out the June issue of the magazine, the following announcements were omitted from the June issue's "Industry Update Calendar" section:

At 9am on May 14, Meridian Audio announced that Walter Schofield will be assuming the position of President of Meridian America at the company's Atlanta office on June 1. Jeff Dean will run Meridian's newly established Hollywood office.

Our industry has again honored its own. The Consumer Electronics Association, sponsors of the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), has announced 12 new inductees to the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame. Awards will be presented October 21 at a special Hall of Fame Dinner, scheduled for the Four Seasons in Las Vegas as part of the CEA's annual fall Industry Forum.

Microsoft made several announcements this week: one promises Live Mesh, a service that would "connect and bring devices together . . . to work in concert"; the other admits that Microsoft promises are not to be trusted.