Audio News for June 17, 2008

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Promotes Safe Listening – The ASHA has extend its existing collaboration with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) on a safe listening public education campaign.  The CEA recommends safe listening and effective hearing loss prevention especially in the area of portable entertainment devices which have become so popular for all age groups. They suggest setting the volume low on personal audio devices and then slowly increasing the sound until it is heard comfortably and clearly without distortion.  Once a comfortable sound level is established, leave it there. Noise-canceling headphones can help, so that levels don’t have to be raised to compete with exterior noises.  The ASHA is the national professional, scientific and credentialing association for over 130,000 speech-language pathologists, audiologist, and speech and hearing specialists. For more information visit the campaign’s web site.

Stage Production Incorporates Zenph Studios Art Tatum Re-performances – A world-premiere one-man play will be presented in New York City June 19-22 at the historic Apollo Theater.  Actor Paul Butler plays the owner of a jazz club who discusses his lifelong friendship with Art Tatum.  As the events in the pianist’s life are mentioned, the computerized reproducing grand piano on stage plays the classic Tatum improvisations which have been re-performed by Zenph Studios and released on a new Sony multichannel SACD.  The author of a new children’s book on Tatum as well as a painter of jazz performers will be present at some of the shows.

Blu-ray Hardware to See Lower Prices Soon – The only Blu-ray manufacturer in Europe – Singulus – says that orders for Blu-ray dual-layer mastering/creation machines have reached a total of 21 for the first quarter of this year, which outpaces the adoption of the new DVD format 11 years ago.  They predict that the sales price of Blu-ray hardware will decrease substantially in the future. Disc prices also are being reduced by some online stores.  This news seems to counter the results of a recent consumer survey by entertainment industry group NPD, which found that only 9% of HDTV owners were thinking about purchase of Blu-ray hardware and software.  Since sales of standard DVDs account for many times the revenue coming in from ticket sales at the theaters, Hollywood movers and shakers are naturally concerned about reluctance to jump into the new format.

Talk About Mini Speakers! – New Sony – The new Sony HT-IS100 5.1 surround system provides five really tiny speakers that beat anything Bose or Orb has done – they’re about the size of a strawberry!  The system does have a not-so-tiny so-called subwoofer, and it comes with three 1080p HDMI inputs.