Sweat Shops and Swipe Shops
When most pundits talk about China as an economic juggernaut, they're either predicting that it's the world's next controlling market or that it's the world's job markets' destroying angel.
News
The Same Language
I'm currently attending GuangZhou Hi-Fi 2006 in GuangZhou, China (you can read my China">http://blog.stereophile.com/china2006//index.html">China Hi-Fi Tour 2006 blog). The show is a fantastic audio event and everywhere I look, I see products I want—some very similar to mainstream US brands and some exceedingly strange and different. But the audiophiles are familiar: Show me a guy who lights up in the glow of a 300B and I'll show you one of my chosen people.
Classical Heaven?
One of the great tragedies of Tower Records' lingering demise was that classical music lovers lost perhaps their most reliable source of recordings. Say what you will about brick-and-mortar record stores, there was something wonderful about finding what you wanted where it was supposed to be. Just try looking up, say, Bruckner's Fourth Symphony on Amazon and see what you get. (Amazon's AI, as good as it is, is a classical music idiot.)
Copyright Office Lists New Exceptions to the DMCA
On November 22, the Librarian of Congress issued a—take a deep breath— declaration">http://www.copyright.gov/1201/">declaration of exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In other words, the LOC decreed that six classes of "non-infringing rights" were exempt from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which criminalized "production and dissemination of technology whose primary purpose is to circumvent measures taken to protect copyright."
Burwen Bobcat Now Available as Download
We received an interesting email from engineer Richard Burwen just before the Thanksgiving business break:
CES Attendees Cautiously Optimistic About the Venetian
Despite griping and grumbling about the">http://www.stereophile.com/news/100206ces/">the change, many makers of high-performance audio gear appear to have settled on their new official venue at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. Two months before the start of the 2007 CES (to be held January 8–11), all but 12 of the Venetian's 198 exhibit rooms and suites had already been sold.
Terry Cain Needs Audiophile Aid
Dedicated audiophile and all-around nice chap Bill Leebens sent along an email a few days ago, noting:
"Stereophile friends:
"Stereophile friends:
Tweeter Teams with Sonos to Woo Music Lovers
Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc., the national electronics retail chain, has teamed with Sonos, Inc., developer of wireless multiroom music systems for the digital home, to bring "the digital home experience directly to the retail floor." The retailer will run broadband Internet connections to Sonos Digital Music System point-of-sale displays at over 150 Tweeter locations, to give music lovers live demonstrations of music server systems.
There Lies the Home, a new Cantus CD, released
There">http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/1206cantus">There Lies the Home, the sixth CD of Minnesotan male-voice choir Cantus recorded by Stereophile editor John Atkinson, is released this week.
Etymotic Research Cuts the Cord
On November 7, Dr. Mead C. Killion, founder and president of Etymotic Research, invited Stereophile to experience the company's newest in-the-ear high-fidelity earphone, the ety-8. What was so special about these half-ounce 'phones? No wires—the ety-8's are the industry's first and only in-the-ear, high-accuracy, noise-exclusion earphones.