Our friend Gene at Audioholics.com gives us his report from the Venetian Hotel at CES. The Venetian was this year’s site for the High End Audio exhibit where apparently Gene learned a lot about what makes high end audio gear sound so darned good. Check out Gene DellaSala’s pointed commentary on the world of high end sound reproduction. Pulling no ...

Pressure on Russian-based file service AllofMP3 has been mounting for some time.  The bully is again the RIAA, or Record Industry Association of America, which is treating AllofMP3 as it did the visibly illegal Limewire, Kazaa, and Napster.  Defenders of AllofMP3.com argue that no comparison with those protocols can be made, and that’s ...

The Microsoft Zune is in over its head.  It’s openly challenging a market held, if not completely gripped by, Apple’s iPod.  And yet, this thing just might work out.  Why?  Not necessarily because the Zune offers Wi-Fi capabilities (three day transfers won’t quite split the DRM atom), but instead reliability.  Microsoft ...

When rumors of the Zune, even before it was given its current name, first surfaced over a year ago, it was supposed to be a game player first and music player second. In that role it was more of a Microsoft Xboy (once a whispered tag), capable of running killer portable apps like Halo. When that dream was whisked away by MS itself, gamers lost a ...

The XM / Sirius merger rumor started late last year but it's been resurfacing again lately. Language used in recent speeches by executives from both Sirius and XM include lines like “Consolidation creates value…” and “Significant benefits…”. So it looks like we're up for another round of satellite radio merger rumors. Why would Sirius and XM, the ...

RedOctane’s Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II have become two of the must-have titles for PlayStation 2 this Christmas.  They’ve revitalized an otherwise old and decrepit system, saving Sony from a completely miserable holiday season (in light of the PS3’s troubled launch).  However, those games – which combine a well-designed guitar-like ...

If game consoles are left as the deciding factor of whether HD DVD or Blu-ray is going to win the next generation high def disc format – HD DVD wins!Any discussion of the next gen format war is controversial at best. But the mood was already established as of last June, with the cover of Sound and Vision magazine proclaiming ...

DRM: Digital Rights Management. A technology that allows owners of digital media files to control how the files are used. Usually to prevent duplication. RIAA: Recording Industry of America. A trade group of brain eating zombies representing the recording industry. Generally regarded as technophobic, and hates digital media. Has ...

The Microsoft Zune sucks.  While we don’t feel that way (see number 6 on our Top Ten Gifts 2006 list), apparently most consumers do.  Despite a whole lot of hype (which we strongly contributed to), the Zune’s second week of release saw the device fall to just 2% of total digital music player sales.  Although its first week on the ...

For a long time, pirates have taken asylum in Russia.  No, we’re not talking about some twisted Treasure Island fantasy, but instead music piracy.  With the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) picking off Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire one-by-one, the watchdog has set its sights on Stalin’s old stomping grounds. That’s where ...