AudioWorld Rating:

PLUS

• good editorial content and recommendations
• useful integration with video and other media
• extensive file management, playlist and tag editing features (downloaded files)
• good audio quality (downloaded files only)

MINUS

• no CD burning or transfers to portable players allowed
• buggy, unstable software, too-frequent crashes
• poorly designed search interface
• downloads usable for 30 days only
• service available in U.S. only

AudioWorld Recommends:
Skip it – this service is more trouble than it’s worth. Besides, downloading music files without being able to burn them to CD or to load them in a portable audio player doesn’t make sense when you’re paying a monthly subscription fee.

Product Description

• CD-quality music file downloads by monthly subscription
• more than 80,000 downloadable tracks from 3 major labels plus independents
• 48 channels of streaming music organized by genres (lo-fi audio only)
• subscription packages priced from $9.95 to $24.95 (US) per month
• available in the U.S. only

AudioWorld Rating:

Selling Online Music As If You’d Really Rather Not

RealOne Music, as offered by RealNetworks, might better be named: RealDud.

The much-hyped MusicNet online music subscription service, with backing from major labels EMI, Warner Music and Bertelsmann (BMG), is available as an add-on to Real Networks’ premium paid content service, RealOne. It will soon be available through America Online as well. Given the restrictions placed on the material you download, and the relatively high cost per download, it’s hard to see why anyone but a fanatic would subscribe.

Here’s the deal.

For $9.95 per month, you get to download 100 files and stream 100 more tunes. You can use the downloads for 30 days, and then they expire (unless you pay for them again out of the next month’s allocation). The streams are low-quality one-time plays, presumably only useful as a way to check out unfamiliar music so you can decide if it’s worth downloading (there’s no other way to preview or sample the available tracks). You can only play downloaded files on your PC: no burning to CD or transfers to portable players allowed.

If the poor value proposition isn’t enough to kill RealOne Music, how about this: the RealOne Player software required to access the service is buggy and prone to crashes (my favorite frequent crash happens when I try to stream a track, but haven’t already downloaded a track during the current session – a classic Catch-22 situation).

But wait, that’s not all — the search function is poorly designed, too! After a search (by keyword, artist, track title, or album title), you are presented with track-by-track listings, but there is no way to click through to an artist or album detail page, the obvious next step. All you can do is either stream or download the individual tracks.

This is all a pity, because buried beneath the roadblocks there is some good content, including a useful ‘recommendations’ feature (“Similar Artists”), and album reviews and artist biographies drawn from the All Music Guide. Oh yes, and some good music, with fine sound quality (downloads only, the streaming audio sounds quite bad).

AudioWorld Rating:

PLUS

• rock solid streaming performance and client software
• unlimited, all-you-can-stream subscription
• good search and browse interface
• useful editorial content and recommendations

MINUS

• no downloads, transfers or CD burning
• limited selection of on-demand content
• less-than-CD audio quality
• USA only, not available in other countries
• Windows only, not available for MacOS

AudioWorld Recommends:
If you just want to find a good selection of high-quality music, sample some new artists, and listen while you are at your PC, Rhapsody is a good value.

Product Description

• streaming music on demand
• more than 100,000 tracks from 3 major labels and 40 independents
• unlimited access by monthly subscription
• subscription packages priced from $5.95 to $9.95 (US) per month
• available in the U.S. only

Chinese and Singapore researchers will conduct joint R&D on the futuristic technology to control audio signal and noise and explore its wide applications.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed here Thursday between the Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Center for Signal Processing (CSP) of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, a team of researchers from both the institute and the center will undertake and focus their efforts on three projects, namely the “Audio Beam” technology, the “Smart Window” and the “Active Noise Control Headset”.

The “Audio Beam” technology, raved as the ultimate sound control technology and deemed to revolutionize the audio world, will create an extremely narrow audio beam like that of laser.

The beam, when directed solely at a specific listener, allows only the desired person to hear it without reaching or disturbing nearby audience, when projected against a surface, will create a virtual speaker at the point of reflection.

With this highly sophisticated and totally personalized technology, one can listen to his rock music on a radio together in the same room with another jotting down recipes from a cooking program on TV without having to compromise his radio volume or to be restricted with a headphone.

The “Smart Window” technology is a long term research project and is capable of sieving out unwanted noise from outside to create a quiet zone so one can have tranquil ambient within his or her enclosed surroundings.

This technology provides smart solution to people in urban cities who are often disturbed by the constant palpable buzz of noise from human, vehicles and construction works in their living and working environment.

The Active Noise Control Technology allows the listener to suppress unwanted noise but still retaining the desired speech that he wants to listen to.

It applications have a significant impact, particularly to people working in harmful noisy environments such as in airplane, helicopter, factory and construction sites.

Source: Xinghua News Agency

Orban/CRL is releasing the OPTIMOD-FM 8200 Signature Series. The special edition Signature Series units, featuring a redesigned front panel bearing the signature of the OPTIMOD line’s renowned engineer, Bob Orban, celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 8200, the world’s all-time, best-selling digital audio processor.

“The 8200 was the first successful digital FM processor and now it’s a classic,” stated Orban/CRL President and CEO Jay Brentlinger.

The 8200 Signature Series includes new presets custom-tuned by Bob Orban and Orban VP of Product Development, Greg Ogonowski. The units also feature Orban’s Digital Sample Rate Adaptive converter as standard.

Over the last decade, sales of the OPTIMOD-FM 8200 have outstripped the combined sales of every other digital audio processor, becoming the broadcast industry standard for clear, consistent sound.

“In the past, many of our competitors had claimed to be building and selling digital processors,” continued Brentlinger, “but they were really digitally controlled analog processors. The OPTIMOD-FM 8200 was, in fact, the first processor to use DSP (Digital Signal Processing) to control and condition the audio.”

“Sales of our OPTIMOD line of audio processors speak for themselves,” said Orban/CRL VP Jim Seemiller. “Over 30,000 units have been sold in the 26 years since the line was introduced, and sales of the 8200 have led the way. With the release of the Signature Series, we expect demand for the 8200 to continue strong.”