Jon Iverson

Citing large crowds of design engineers and consumers at its World PC Expo Pavilion in Japan last week, Texas Instruments' James Snider, chairman of the <A HREF="http://www.1394ta.org">1394 Trade Association</A>, predicted a surge in product design based on the 1394/FireWire/i.Link standard in the coming year. Snider says that the demand for 1394 PC and consumer products is accelerating worldwide "as users become aware of the quality of video and audio that can be easily and efficiently transported in home, office, and theater environments."

Imagine yourself a recording artist just signed to a contract with one of Sony Music's record labels. You put out a couple of albums and start a website using your own name (say, for example, www.bobdylan.com). But the music wind starts blowing in a different direction, your contract comes up for renewal, and, either through your manager's insistence or that of one of Sony's big cheeses, you decide to leave the label and sign with someone else.

Earlier this month, at the Internationale Funkausstellung 1999 in Berlin, Germany, <A HREF="http://www.syrinx.de">Syrinx music & media</A> announced that, together with <A HREF="http://www.panasonic.com/">Panasonic/Technics</A&gt; and their new DVD-Audio players (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10509/">previous story</A>), they successfully presented the world's first DVD-Audio disc. The Internationale Funkausstellung 1999 ran from August 28 until September 5 under the theme of "Your World of Consumer Electronics."

When <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A&gt; introduced the first Super Audio CD (SACD) player, the SCD-1 (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10445/">previous report</A> and Jonathan Scull's forthcoming review in the November 1999 <I>Stereophile</I>), audiophiles who heard it were impressed with its performance, but wondered if its $5000 price tag would keep it out of the market for a while. Last week, Sony announced their second SACD player, the SCD-777ES, to appear in October at the slightly more wallet-friendly price of $3500.

The year was 1956, and Elvis had just finshed his set on the December 15 <I>Louisiana Hayride</I> radio show. Elvis was one of a half-dozen acts that were broadcast that night on KWKH, the radio station that originated <I>Hayride</I>. After his encore, Elvis left the stage and the crowd went wild&mdash;so wild that they would not stop screaming for more of the soon-to-be king of rock'n'roll. Because several acts on the bill had not yet performed, the show's announcer, Horace Logan, went to the microphone in an attempt to quiet the audience, and ended up making a little music history.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.burr-brown.com">Burr-Brown Corporation</A> announced the development of the DSD1700, which the company says is its first Direct Stream Digital (DSD) audio digital-to-analog converter. According to Burr-Brown, the converter is designed for Sony's DSD technology, which is used in Super Audio CD players, professional DSD processors, and DSD mixing consoles.

E<I>ditor's Note: </I>Stereophile<I>'s new release, </I>Bravo!<I>, is available for order through the <A HREF="https://secure.stereophile.com/stereophile/record.html">Recordings page</A> of this website.</I>