Audio News - AUDIOPHILE AUDITION

Dolby Pro Logic II for Digital Radio - The Pro Logic II matrix surround sound audio format has been approved by licensee Dolby Laboratories and iBiquity Digital Corporation for the HD Radio system, which is finally being offering by a growing number of radio stations in the U.S., on the same frequency as the station’s present analog transmissions. Since HD Radio is only a two-channel system, this will enable stations to broadcast surround sound sources by encoding them into the Dolby Pro Logic II matrix on two channels, to be received as either standard stereo or decoded to five-channel surround by the tens of millions of tuners, receivers and AV preamps with Pro Logic II decoders. (This usually provides improved surround sound over merely processing a standard stereo source with Pro Logic II.) Network TV has been using Pro Logic II on certain programs.

Boston Acoustics Digital HD Radio - The Recepter Radio HD will be introduced by speaker-maker Boston Acoustics in June as one of the first home radios for HD to be made available. In addition to the usual FM and AM it will offer reception of the iBiquity Digital HD Radio signals now being added to the service of many stations nationally. The table radio will have a stereo input for iPods and a stereo headphone output which may also be used for connection to any component audio system (enabling surround sound decoding with Pro Logic II as described above).

DTV Transition Ups & Downs - The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has announced that sales to dealers of digital TV products during February rose 43% over February 2004 and dollar sales were nearly $700 million. DTV remains the fastest-growing area of consumer electronics, with a high demand for flat panel and rear-projection HDTV. However CEA president Gary Shapiro said the association had been wrong in assuming that the broadcast and cable industries would help to spur sales growth this year. Instead he finds both industries have created roadblocks to slow the transition. Broadcasters don’t want a “date certain” on which all analog telecasting will cease and viewers without a DTV will have to purchase a set top convertor in order to have any TV, and have also tried to slow the timetable for manufacturers to provide digital tuners in all TV sets. Cable providers refuse to promote Digital Cable Ready products such as the CableCARD. The CEA sees these as critical steps to ensure rapid consumer adoption of DTV.