Onkyo’s new TX-8050 stereo receiver is designed to give music enthusiasts a variety of options to connect different sources, old and new. According to the company’s March 28 press release: “A front-panel USB port allows direct digital connection for iPod/iPhone and other USB devices. An Ethernet jack provides streaming Internet radio or audio from computer or network sources. Onkyo’s proprietary Universal Port provides for Onkyo-branded peripheral iPod/iPhone docks, HD radio tuner, and future wireless options. Finally, the TX-8050 supports classic audio sources such as a turntable, AM/FM tuner, audio recorder, AV sources, and a CD player via analog or optical/coaxial digital connections.” Insofar as digital formats go, the TX-8050 supports a wide range of file types: MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, FLAC, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and LPCM audio.
The TX-8050’s power amplifier is rated at 80Wpc into 8 ohms (continuous) with less than 0.08% distortion, and it has a “dynamic power rating” of 160Wpc into 4 ohms. According to Onkyo: “This receiver features Onkyo’s proprietary WRAT amplifier technology, which incorporates a low negative-feedback design, closed-ground-loop circuits, and a high instantaneous-current capability. Together, these work to reduce distortion and cancel circuit noise, ensuring cleaner and more accurate signal amplification.” The TX-8050 will be available in late April with a suggested retail price of $399.
The SoundStage! Network is the worldwide leader when it comes to providing on-the-spot event coverage. The SoundStage! Network set the standard for on-the-spot show reporting over a decade ago, and is now taking their “live coverage” concept to company tours.
On March 25, 2011, editor-in-chief Jeff Fritz visited the home of Coda Technologies, located in Sacramento, CA, USA, to learn more about the company and report firsthand on how their products are built. Coda is a manufacturer of high-end amplifiers and preamplifiers. The factory tour is now available on SoundStage! Global, the newest SoundStage! Network site created specifically for on-the-spot reporting.
Canada’s Raysonic Audio has introduced the Reference 2 preamplifier and Reference 26 mono amplifier, which the company says use the highest-quality parts and are intended to be statement-level designs created to compete with the state of the art. Raysonic describes the Reference 2 as a “full-featured, class-A single-ended and true balanced triode-pentode vacuum-tube stereo preamplifier.” The two-chassis, all-tube 2 has a separate power supply as well as individual tube regulators for the left and right channels. The massive Reference 26 mono amplifier weighs 100 pounds and uses 12 7591AEH tubes to output up to 180W. Raysonic claims that no solid-state devices are used in the 26’s signal path and that the 26 also has a super-high-bandwidth output transformer that provides these benefits: “The major feature of the super-wide bandwidth output transformer is that it delivers the current in the bass, while still maintaining the speed in the high frequencies, dramatically improving the square-wave response of the amplifier. The effect is a much more natural and relaxed sound with greater clarity, resolution and fluidity.”
The Reference 26 and Reference 2 both have anodized brushed-aluminum chassis and are available in black or silver. The Reference 2’s retail price is $11,500 USD, while the Reference 26 retails for $16,500 per pair.
With dozens of full-length equipment reviews now online and published in 2011, the SoundStage! Network has launched the 2011 SoundStage! Network Equipment Buying Guide, featuring review summaries, product photos, and links to the full reviews. The first equipment buying guide debuted in 2009 and was an instant success.
The products are divided into 17 categories, making lookup easier, and every entry can be printed using a supplied link. New entries will be consistently added as new product reviews are published on SoundStage! Hi-Fi, SoundStage! Xperience, GoodSound!, and Ultra Audio, which are all part of the SoundStage! Network, the world’s largest group of publications catering to home-entertainment enthusiasts. The SoundStage! Network now has more than 250,000 monthly readers worldwide.
Phillips has developed a technology for remote controls that would end having to push buttons. Well, having to push many of them. It’s called uWand, and it makes use of a special camera that is embedded in the remote control that identifies beacons built into the device that you want to control. User inputs, and the controller’s pointing coordinates, are sent to the target device, which interprets and reproduces the inputs on screen.
In use, the infrared camera continuously monitors the remote’s position in relation to the infrared beacons in the bar and those coordinates (x, y, z and rotation), together with user inputs, are transmitted by RF from the remote to the target device which, in turn, makes it available to the relevant application (e.g., TV, game, picture library, etc.).
When enabled, uWand will allow users to control entertainment events by using slight body, finger, hand, and pointing motions. The point-and-gesture control could result in a remote control that only has three buttons, though its back might include a full keyboard for entering movie titles and requests.
Look for this technology to appear to the public in 2012. In the meantime, the Philips uWand site has some appealing, introductory videos you can watch now.
MSB Technology has announced the new Universal Media Transport (UMT). According to Vince Galbo of MSB, "The UMT is a groundbreaking new product that offers easy access to the broadest array of audiophile sources imaginable. In addition to playing every conceivable disc, a USB thumb drive and external hard drive, the UMT is an excellent solution for the audiophile in the process of building and setting up a music computer. The UMT provides a bit-perfect network player that avoids all the computer-playback pitfalls such as operating system re-sampling, media player word-length conversion, soft mutes and volume controls, and any other attempted conversions or 'enhancements.' Many music computers alter the music data despite the best efforts of the user (and quite unknown to the user)."
The UMT is reported to be a true memory player with a proprietary buffer that stores the raw data then plays it back as a bit-perfect stream that, according to the company, is jitter-free at the outputs. Also incorporated in the UMT is MSB's Intersample Harshness Correction, a "no compromise method of correcting for digital 'clipping' that occurs at the recording studio." SACD is processed with MSB’s proprietary Xport technology for SACD playback. The power supply utilizes MSB’s latest technology brought forward from the new DAC IV series.
Galbo sums up: "This universal music solution provides multiple digital outputs with bit-perfect playback and zero jitter improving the sound of any DAC. Much more information is available on the MSB website for this groundbreaking new product."
ABKCO Music, Records Inc. and HDtracks are releasing five albums by The Rolling Stones in 24-bit/88.2kHz and 24-bit/176.4 FLAC formats: The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones No.2, 12 X 5, Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), and Through the Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol.2). According to HDtracks’ press release on March 3, 2011: "Many years of research went into locating the original mono and stereo analog tapes that would be used in ABKCO's Rolling Stones Remastered Series. That research revealed a treasure trove of first-generation tapes -- true stereo masters from The Stones' 1964 Chess Studios sessions including the unedited version of ‘2120 South Michigan Avenue,’ Beggar's Banquet at its correct speed and Let It Bleed with splicing that indicates that the original intention was to leave little spacing between each cut.” The 88.2kHz recordings are priced at $19.98 each and the 176.4kHz recordings at $29.98 each.
Highway 61 Entertainment and MVD Visual announced the release of Bob Dylan Revealed for worldwide DVD distribution on May 1, 2011, in conjunction with Bob Dylan's 70th birthday.
When Bob Dylan turns 70 in May, his iconic career will have spanned five decades. Through exclusive insider interviews and never-before-seen photos and footage spanning Dylan's 50-year career, Bob Dylan Revealed offers an intimate biography of who Bob Dylan was, and who he is today.
Producer Jerry Wexler and award-winning songwriter Al Kasha provide an untold account of Dylan's early days at Columbia Records in 1962. Drummer Mickey Jones chronicles the 1966 Bob Dylan and the Band's Electric World Tour that many feel changed rock'n'roll forever, while soon after, Dylan used the cover of a motorcycle accident to enter drug rehab. Dylan's 1974 Comeback Tour is illustrated by tour photographer Barry Feinstein through his photos and behind-the-scenes accounts. In 1975, Bob Dylan hit the road with a rag-tag band of folk troubadours, culminating in "The Night of the Hurricane." Folk legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott, violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and Rubin "Hurricane" Carter reveal the inside story of Dylan's Desire album and Rolling Thunder Revue Tour.
Following a stint as "The Entertainer" in 1978, Bob Dylan produced three gospel albums through the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church. Derided as "god-awful gospel," Dylan's radical new direction alienated fans and enraged critics. Pastor Bill Dwyer, journalist Joel Selvin, singer Regina McCrary, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, and Dylanologist AJ Weberman share intimate accounts of Bob Dylan's "born-again" transformation -- and his return to Judaism! Bob Dylan Revealed culminates with Dylan's Never Ending Tour that began in 1992 and continues to this day, as drummer Winston Watson recounts his personal journey as a warrior in Bob Dylan's Never Ending Band.