Audio News for November 3, 2006

Tube Pod Introduced – Well, with the enthusiastic following that tube technology has today, it had to happen. A firm called Sonic Integrity has introduced a vacuum  tube 13-watt amp and iPod docking station combined with a pair of monitor speakers and inputs for a CD player, TV or what have you to the system. $999. Reminded us of the all-tube multichannel surround processor built by Jim Fosgate. Such things could only happen in this crazy world of hi-end audio.

Luxury Hard-Disc Storage of Music – The new Maestro music player from FortunaClassical.com features a 400GB hard drive so that your CDs can be stored on it as lossless WMA files (in other words, at true CD quality). If you can to dub the files to your iPod it will convert them to AAC as you download. The searchability of your large collection after downloading is unmatched with any other approach. Not only the music on the CDs but also the CD booklets and artwork are all scanned and loaded onto the hard drive so they can be displayed as you check thru your collection. Even the libretti of operas are scanned. You can send your entire collection to Fortuna for ripping and scanning – the first 1000 CDs are included in the purchase price of $5000. Or you can buy the hard drive already loaded with close to $14,000 worth of classical catalog drawn from the Naxos label. If you have competing versions of the same selection, Maestro allows you to easily compare selected passages. The system makes it easy for users to rip any new discs they might add to their collection.

Blu-ray News – Samsung has released their first firmware upgrade for their BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, which had a few problems out of the gate. The fixes involve resolving playback problems of DTS tracks, fixing reversed analog output connectors and parental lock function, HDMI compatibility, allowing 4:0 full screen player of standard-def content included on Blu-ray discs, and improvement of disc loading and access times.

Fox will launch five new Blu-ray DVD titles next month: The Devil Wears Prada, Flight of the Phoenix, Transporter 2, From Hell, and Rising Sun. All except the last two will be 1080p/MPEG-2 transfers and have DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio soundtracks. The others will use AVC MPEG-4 format.

Klipsch Buys API – The Klipsch group has acquired the Canadian company Audio Products International, which is the parent company for the Mirage, Athena, Energy and Spherex loudspeaker brands. Earlier acquisitions by Klipsch included Mondial Designs and Definitive Technologies.