MusicBrainz Community Music Metadatabase – If you don’t know about this user-maintained open community that features music metadata in the form of a relational database, you should. It was created when Gracenote took over the free CDDB project and began to charge users for access to the data (such as used in iTunes). The MusicBrainz community has expanded to the point it is more than a CDDB replacement and has become a “Wikipedia for Music.” It only provides data about recordings, not the music itself. All the data – artist/album/track/timings/etc. – is contributed and maintained by its users. They follow style guidelines to ensure a standard of quality. The database is available for free download by the general public. You can use it to learn what music your favorite artists have published, find out which albums of an artist you may have missed in your collection, receive notices about upcoming releases, examine the credits on a particular recording, discover entirely new music, or contribute your own data. MusicBrainz can automatically identify and label all the music files on your computer or iPod. All you do is download and run one of their taggers, such as one named Picard. Go to https://musicbrainz.org
Polk Introduces Flagship LSiM Speaker Lineup – Longtime speaker makers Polk Audio have announced a re-engineering of the qualities that made their flagship LSi line the best in its class. The new LSiM series includes tower, bookshelf, center and surround channel models, all achieving exceptionally high sonic objectives. Polk’s Dynamic BAlance technology in their twoer models combines the latest in composite materials and computer-assisted geometry to create drives with low distortion and artifacts. Polk’s Dynamic Sonic Engine enclosure is a single molded component carrying both a proprietary 3.25” Extended Linear Motion mid-range driver and a 1” Advance Isotropic Ring radiator (AIR) tweeter. Advance material engineering used in the LSiM series features Super Cell Aerated polypropylene cones to reduce mass and distortions. Cast aluminum frames on the driver baskets ensure superior rigidity. Magnetic, non-diffracting grills and easy-leveling floor spikes are other features of the speakers. They will be available first quarter 2011.
Back-to-College Spending on Electronic Gadgets Falters – A sharp drop in spending is being seen by freshmen and their parents this year. First-year college students will spend 19% less on their shipping a national survey has shown. The back-to-college season has always been a cash cow for retailers. A cutback in the purchase of electronics is responsible for the decline. Freshmen plan to slash spending on new laptops, MP3 players and other gadgets by more than $150 this year. On analyst says students might be holding back on laptops because they already have so many other gadgets. Also more students are living at home and enrolling in their local colleges instead of going away to school. However, the Consumer Electronics Association predicts that electronics sales will be 3% up this year from 2009.
Getting Started on Whole-House Audio – Would you like to have speakers throughout your home, play music as you move about your various tasks – instead of having to sit down in front of your main audio system? Do you want to control the sound in different rooms wherever you are, select different inputs, and perhaps even feed a different music program to one room than to the rest? If you have these or any other reasons for wanting a whole-house audio system, here are some useful sites that will help you get started – as well as decide if it’s the sort of thing you want to install yourself or hire a CEDIA professional to handle for you:
https://www.smarthome.com/wwaudvid.html
https://www.hometech.com/learn/audio.html
https://www.modernhometheater.com/howto/home_automation_1/index.shtml
