Reference Recordings Introduces HRx Format – Audiophile label Reference Recordings will be introducing at WCES in Las Vegas this weekend its new HRx format for computer-based music servers. The process uses high bit-rate WAV files at 176.4 kHz/24 bits and is a digit-for-digit uncompressed copy of the original Reference Recordings masters for the ultimate fidelity in stereo. The process is part of the growing effort to improve the audio quality of digital music recorded on hard drives, which currently are mostly low-sample-rate MP3-type audio files. The label’s chief engineer Keith O. Johnson has received his seventh GRAMMY nomination for Best Engineered Album for David Maslanka’s Garden of Dreams.
More on Kilowatts Used by Home Electronics – We’ve had stories about how your home power bill is being run up by idling wall warts on your AV gear, and others measuring the energy consumption and finding that electric heaters, refrigerators etc. were much bigger AC hogs. Here’s some additional facts: The Department of Energy says that in the average home 75% of the electricity powering home electronics is consumed while the particular products are turned off. Touch your wall warts while in operation, and if they are warm you are converting AC into unnecessary heat and if the unit is only being used for a brief time once in a while, unplug it until you need it. Of course we tube fans never leave our preamps and amps on all the time. Did you know that the hard drives in PVRs run day and night without powering down as do the drives in computers? Your TiVo, Dish Network, DirecTV, Comcast etc. set-top boxes are not only running up your electric bill but heading more quickly toward the eventual hard drive crash. And speaking of computers, they take lots of energy, and most of us leave ours on 24 hours a day now. They are supposed to go to sleep after a specified time you select to be energy efficient when you are not using them, but reports are that many PCs fail to do that. Windows PCs are notorious for this problem – either not going to sleep at all or sleeping so soundly that they can’t be awakened. Vista, the new operating system, hasn’t corrected this problem.
