HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

Some landline connection problems kept me offline for most of last week. I spent the weekend scanning the stories I missed—here are some worth noting:

• DVD Jon comes to the US to work with MP3.com founder: why, oh why, would a wiz kid would want to partner with a man who may be bold but fails each and every time (unless you call Lindows/Linspire/MP3tunes successful ventures—and let’s not remember how MP3.com crashed and burned). Anyway, he’ll be working on Oboe, a “significant new project” for MP3tunes that will “bring digital music into the 21st century”, according to Robertson. Side-fact: Johansen is intrigued by Helix, RealNetwork’s DRM flavor, because “it’s the same audio format as Apple’s, but higher quality.”


• Yahoo! Music Unlimited fees increase sharply: if you’re interested in transferring those tunes to your portable audio device, bad news: monthly fees rise steeply from $7 to $12 (or from $5 to $10 if you pay them annually). It was known that Yahoo! was losing money on the previous rates, but doubling them straight away doesn’t send the right message to the customer. It should be noted though that they’re still offering probably the best value-for-money when it comes to subscription services. And you’re still going with the old rates if transferring those tunes to your MP3 player doesn’t interest you.


• 10M Sony PSPs Sold: woah, 10M units in less than a year. It took Apple three years to reach 21M iPods. Yeah, I know, comparing apples to oranges, but still, impressive numbers… Also, they want to sell another 3M units during the holidays in the US.


• Microsoft recants exclusive music deals: MS asks MP3 player manufacturers to stop distributing rival music management software with their offerings and go with Windows Media Player alone, Department of Justice takes notes, MS says “hey! it was only a draft! for feedback! we’re not like that!”


• Panasonic’s new D-Snap MP3 players and micro-stereo systems: four miniature MP3 players with no on-board memory, a built-in SD slot and an impressive battery life. The design isn’t particularly bad and did we mention there’s an FM tuner and voice recorder in there too? Also, we’ve got two micro-stereo systems which come with the usual (that 90’s CD slot, FM/AM tuner) and the not-so-usual (40/80GB hard drives, SD slot, Ethernet connectivity) features. You can rip your CDs to AAC format in 8x speeds, pass those rips to the SD card, put it in a Panasonic D-Snap MP3 player and see? Magic.


• Review: Lamm LL2 Tube Preamp: “In relative terms, I’ve heard more expensive preamps than this, but I’ve never heard one that performs better; in absolute terms, judged for its musicality, the quality of its parts and construction, and its sheer design ingenuity, the Lamm LL2 is worth every penny they’re asking for it.”—yours for $4690 (obviously not targeted to everyone). [via]


• Sony NW-A1200 8GB Walkman: Japan only, in gold and black. Bigger brother to the 6GB (NW-A1000) version we’ve presented last month.


• Cowon adds support for DRM 10 in new X5 firmware: at last. Version 2.10.b6 is what you’re looking for, but take a look at the notes and limitations. Man, all those warnings—don’t do this! don’t do that!—no wonder people are still buying iPods in droves.


• Sony Walkman Bean NW-E307 reviewed: it’s the 1GB version and it scored an average rating (5.7/10). “The bottom line: Sony’s half-baked Walkman Bean tries hard to be hip, but bad design elements and hissy audio make it one square audio player.”