On March 24, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division stated that, "after thorough and careful review" (<I>translation:</I> more than one year) Sirius Satellite Radio's $5 billion offer to purchase XM Satellite Radio "is not likely to harm consumers."
Visitors to the 2008 International Auto Show, currently taking place at NYC's Jacob Javits Convention Center, might discover something different at the Bentley display: a high-end audio listening room. Bentley Motors and Naim have teamed up for the <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/022108bentley/">"Naim For Bentley"</A> program, which will be offered as a sound package upgrade for all Bentley models by year's end.
"I thought starting an audiophile record label was hard," Chesky Records co-founder Norman Chesky told <I>Stereophile</I>. "That was <I>nothing</I> compared to this. We've spent three years developing <A HREF="http://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=staticpage&pagename=aboutus">HDt…;
<B>We get letters department:</B> Here at <I>Stereophile</I>, we talk to people in the high-end audio industry all the time, and we frequently get fascinating emails from movers and shakers within the industry. This week we received one that got us thinking about outsourcing manufacturing and how it could affect high-end consumers.
Donates $1 million to early-onset Alzheimer's research <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7291315.stm"</A>. Tells Alzheimer's Research Trust conference, "Personally, I'd eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance."
<I>Blender</I> has just posted its nominations for <A HREF="http://www.blender.com/articles/default.aspx?key=18696">greatest record industry screw-ups</A>. I have a few quibbles, but as a whole, <I>Blender</I> tells a tale of monumental stupidity,from Decca passing on the Beatles because Dick Rowe was irritated that too many frantic teens were attempting to get into the Cavern Club to shutting down Napster without having a legitimate channel to replace it.
Even the most savvy <I>Stereophile</I> reader might wonder what a "network music player" is. Linn rightly considers a <I>music server</I> to be a combination of 1) stored digital files, 2) music-management software, and 3) a device that uses #2 to transfer #1 to your hi-fi. What Linn's Klimax DS <I>is</I> is a high-quality digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that receives digital data through an Ethernet connection rather than optical or electrical S/PDIF or AES/EBU inputs.
<A HREF="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582330-1,00.html">Her…; an interesting article about Princeton University composer Dmitri Tymoczko, who has string theory mathematics to represent the relationship of musical chords to one another in a graphic form.
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UK newspaper <I>The Telegraph</I> reported March 3 that Sir Paul McCartney has signed a $6 million deal to release the Beatles catalog to iTunes for downloading. While <I>The Independent</I> and the <I>Daily Mail</I> have also reported the same thing, there has been no confirmation from Apple, EMI, McCartney, surviving Beatle Ringo Starr, or the families of deceased members John Lennon or George Harrison.