Dorian Bankruptcy Remains Unclear - The fate of the Dorian audiophile label is still being negotiated in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. California-based Reference Recordings wants their label’s sale to Dorian rescinded on the grounds that Dorian failed to pay them or perform anything in their contract. Dorian’s troubles began shortly after they separated from their distributor - Portland, OR.-based Allegro Music (who came out the loser last year in a lawsuit concerning the sale under their own name of another producer’s copy-protected recordings).
Denon Receives Approval for Hi-Res Digital Interface - Denon Electronics’ proprietary Denon Link digital interface standard has been approved for the transmission of SACD signals by both Sony and Philips, developers of the SACD format. Approval of Denon Link for DVD-Audio signals was obtained earlier from the DVD Forum, so this will make it possible for Denon and perhaps other manufacturers to achieve the highest quality digital audio connection between hi-res disc players and preamps or receivers rather than being limited to the present six-channel analog connection. Denon reports that products in accordance with the new specification will be available in the near future.
Digitally Imported Radio Adds aacPlus - Coding Technologies and Digitally Imported Radio (DI) - one of the popular radio services on the Net - have added the MPEG-4 aacPlus codec to their free streaming radio service to both enhance sonic quality and reduce the bit rate required. aacPlus (also used by Apple’s iTunes music store) delivers a four times improvement over MP3 in quality per bit. Results can be sampled at www.di.fm and www.tuner2.com
Krell Heightens the High End - Krell Industries has been known for introducing some of the highest-level audio gear in the high end during its 25-year history. Now they have hand-crafted a cost-no-object pair of perfectionist mono preamp and basic amp. The Evolution One is a Class A 450-watt mono amp at $45K a pair, and The Evolution Two is a Class A mono preamp with individual 16-bit balanced resistor ladder volume controls, at $35K.
Feb. 2, 2005 
