Jamie Parker Commemorates 150 Years of Classical Music in Canada – He is the face classical piano music thruout Canada and enjoys bringing its joys to audiences around the world. He is judge for the Cliburn Competition and often paralyses his Facebook followers with laughter. Competitors in the annual Piano Hero competition are evaluated mainly on their pre-recorded video presentation. Jamie says it is not a question of quality but rather of relevancy control: “…boards of directors do not do an adequate job of raising funds or keeping audiences engaged in their outreach initiatives.” He says “all musicians play well, if there are enough starving artists, then only the best are going to get jobs today.” “The Baby Boomers have not really migrated to classical music.”
Linkplay Offers Turnkey WiFi Speaker Solution with Alexa – Linkplay Technology, a leading WiFi audio solution provider, offered at a one-day conference a way to educate customers interested in designing and building Powered by Linkplay products. The Amazon Alexa Voice Service is a broad ecosystem which can develop customer-differentiated audio products and other smart home devices. Linkplay’s patented Smart WiFi audio hardware and software module provides AVS integration, streaming music integration, app and cloud development, and multi-room speaker capabilities as well as low latency, hi-res lossless audio. Five speaker brands also use the Linkplay platform and many more will be launching this year. Speakers can be wireless and hands-free, and consumers can simply ask Alexa to play their favorite music, turn on the lights, provide news, weather and traffic reports, set alarums, order food, and more. Many music services are compatible for both iOS and Android devices. There is no need to connect a phone to the speakers, so music can be streamed without interference from calls or texts.
New Mark Levinson Hi-Res Audio Player – The 519 has hi-res wired or wireless streaming, network, CD transport and nine digital inputs (including Wi-Fi and AptX Bluetooth). The aluminium-housed player also provides headphone connectivity and an integrated digital volume control. Selectable low-pass filtering enables the unbalanced outputs to be used for subwoofer integration. It supports hi-res digital recording up to 192K/24-bit from PCM and double-speed DSD. Its DAC features an ESS Sabre32 Reference converter. It plays most two-channel formats, except SACD and Blu-ray. It can be operated from its front panel, remote, Apple or Android apps and all major web browsers. Harman Clari-Fi music restoration technology rebuilds musicality and detail lost in MP3 files. ($17,000 by late spring.)
Global Market Report Predicts Nearly $295 Million for Home Entertainment by 2022 – The market includes TV sets, video players and recorder, audio equipment and gaming devices. There has been a significant rise in consumer investments in entertainment products. Market growth is driven by the increase in the digitization of electronic goods, rapid innovations in existing products, the growing tech-savvy urban population in developing countries. However, growth of these products is mitigated by a consumer shift toward mobile platforms and apprehensions due to the adverse effects on health from audio equipment and wireless devices.
