What You Need to Know About Consumer and Professional Audio
“Simply explained,” says Gary Suttle of Rockford, “Omnifi uses the popular Wi-Fi home-networking technology to stream digital music from the PC to the home stereo and to deliver digital music and information to a hard-drive based entertainment system in the car.”
Winner of an Innovations 2003 Design and Engineering Award and Mobile Audio Best of Honoree Award at CES 2003. Available April 2003 at a suggested retail price of $599 (US).
"An uncompromising design utilizing only the finest parts available"
The Grande La Folia is an upscale re-working of Silverline’s acclaimed La Folia speaker. It is an uncompromising design utilizing only the finest parts available. The superior drivers employing humongous hexagonal wound voice coils assure high power handling while revealing highly refined music timbres and shadings. The thickness of the cabinet ranges from 2″ to 3″ and heavily embraced. The extremely rigid hexagonal enclosure helps to eliminate unwanted internal resonance while the minimum baffle surface is optimized for superior imaging and soundstaging.
Available now, suggested retail price $28,000 (US) per pair.
* Design ( Woofers Rear Ported) : 3-way, 7 drivers
* Drivers: (Supplied by Dynaudio™)
* One T330D Esotar 1.25″ soft dome tweeter
* Two D76AF soft dome midrange with 3″ voice coil
* Four 24W100X long-throw 9″ woofers with 4″ voice coil
* Frequency Response : 25 Hz – 32 kHz (+/-) 3 dB
* Sensitivity : 93 dB
* Nominal Impedance : 8 ohms
* Crossover Frequency : 1.8 kHz/3.5 kHz
* Recommended Power : 12 to 2,000 watts
Two acclaimed Naxos recordings received accolades as the nominees for the 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards were announced on January 7, 2003.
Audio engineer John Newton was recognized with a nomination for Best Engineered Album, Classical for his work on a volume of orchestral works by George Whitefield Chadwick. The album includes a selection of Chadwick’s symphonic poems played by the Nashville Symphony, with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting. With a recorded sound that is “just right, with enough ambiance for warmth, yet still with plenty of detail,” the recording is brought to life through Newton’s masterful touch. This is another fine addition to the Nashville Symphony’s Naxos recordings, which also include works by Bernstein, Ives, and Hanson.
A nomination for Best Instrumental Solo Performance with Orchestra went to James Buswell for his brilliant solo work on Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, supported by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Marin Alsop conducting. Deemed “a performance with a genuine heart, superbly played, with a marked care for detail, instrumental colour and melodic inflection” (Geoffrey Norris, The Daily Telegraph), the performance is not to be missed. Rounding out the album are Barber’s Souvenirs (Ballet Suite) Op.28 and Serenade for Strings Op.1, creating a substantial programme filled with the stirring complexities of Barber’s works.
Both recordings are part of Naxos’ American Classics series, which is devoted to presenting a comprehensive collection of American art music. The series includes repertoire by familiar names such as Ives, Sousa, and Copland as well as lesser-known composers including George Frederick McKay and Elie Siegmeister.
The GRAMMYs, given by the US-based Recording Academy (National Academy for the Recording Arts and Sciences), are among the highest honours given in the American recording industry. The 2003 GRAMMYs will be presented on February 23rd in New York.
Naxos Web Site
"A hip, fresh, trend-setting, sound-infused seating option like no other available on the furniture market today"
The Pyramat Interactive PM300 is a 3-speaker lounging system (soft, comfy furniture) designed to enhance your gaming experience, but also a good bet for listening to music from your home theater, stereo system, MP3 or CD portable player. The bass will shock you as the side speakers rock you. The powerful 4″ woofer vibrates with game play and the side speakers create an encompassing sound field. Thick foam padding provides extra support for extended play.
Winner of Tech TV’s Best of CES Award in the Gaming category. Available now, $149.99 (US).
The LYRA Wireless is targeted at consumers who want to enjoy the vast collection of digital audio files stored on their PC on a home stereo system. It uses Thomson’s proprietary Digital Sound Mix technology to transmit 900mHz signals at near CD-quality up to a range of 100 feet.
The RD900W integrates with MusicMatch software, enabling users to create playlists and organize their library of digital music files using ID3 tag song data to display artist, album, song title and genre; and Internet audio files can be played directly from a website.
The transmitter connects to the PC via a USB connection. The receiver plugs into the home stereo system via a standard RCA audio jack.
Available now, at a suggested retail price of $99 (US).
Thomson's RCA LYRA Wireless transmits audio at near CD-quality up to a range of 100 feet, via 900mhz signals
The RCA LYRA Wireless system includes a radio frequency (RF) remote control, which can be operated from anywhere in the house, that enables the user to adjust volume, skip songs, or choose between sources of music on the PC (such as MP3 files, CDs, or Internet radio) even when the PC is in another room. The universal remote control can also operate most features of RCA audio and video products.