New Lossless Coding Competition - MLP was the first data reduction system to achieve lossless coding - in which the recovered signal is bit-for-bit the same as the original digital input. It is used on most DVD-As to achieve 5.1 surround with 96K resolution at each channel, an impossibility using linear PCM in view of the capacity of a DVD - and has a variety of options for use in many other audio applications. Now DTS has also developed their own lossless extension to the DTS Coherent Acoustics codec used in many DVDs and theatrical films. The first public screening of Lossless Digital Sound for Cinema was with a large-format film titled Sacred Planet at a museum in Utah last summer. New enhancements of both DTS and MLP have been selected as options for both of the competing new hi-def DVD formats.
Two More Print Audio Publications Go Web - The January issue of Stereophile’s Ultimate AV was the final print version of the home theater publication. Its home is now http://www.guidetohometheater.com/ - and a less expensive to produce and more more flexible, free publication is the result. Editor Thomas J. Norton and most of the staff remain.
As of February 15th Peter Aczel’s The Audio Critic - which was being mailed out on such a sporadic schedule that most of us thought it had entirely disappeared (again) - has also become a web zine. Crusty editor/publisher Aczel mentions in his email announcement the skyrocketing cost of printing and mailing as well as the cost of distributing retail copies to newsstands and stores, plus the fact that the magazine’s subscriber base had been shrinking (understandably). Paid-up subscribers to the print magazine can access the new site with a password mailed to them, and first-timers pay a one-time $12.95 fee to access the site at http://www.theaudiocritic.com/cwo/Home/?id=3
Personalities in Jazz & Classical Sign Off - The great Jimmy Smith, who hand-and-footedly reinvented the Hammond B3 for jazz, passed away February 9 at age 76. He created the B3/guitar/drums trio that revolutionized jazz, soul music and R&B. His many Blue Note recordings for Rudy Van Gelder remain legendary.
Widely-syndicated classical music host Karl Haas has died at age 91. His long-running daily hour-long program, “Adventures in Good Music,” was distributed by WCLV in Cleveland [who by the way also distributed “Audiophile Audition” for 13+ years] to hundreds of stations around the world. Haas, who had a punny theme for each day’s program such as “The Joy of Sax," stopped doing the show two years ago and the series will continue in reruns. Pianist, conductor and musicologist Haas had come to the U.S. in l936 after fleeing Nazi Germany.
Feb. 23, 2005 
