download the PDF version - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

UHF Magazine No. 67 was published in July, 2003. All
contents are copyright 2003 by Broadcast Canada. They
may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher.
EDITORIAL & SUBSCRIPTION OFFICE:
Broadcast Canada
Box 65085, Place Longueuil
LONGUEUIL, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383
E-mail: uhfmail@uhfmag.com
World Wide Web: http://www.uhfmag.com
PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Reine Lessard
EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Reine Lessard, Albert Simon
PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon
ADVERTISING SALES:
Québec: Reine Lessard (450) 651-5720
Alberta & BC: Derek Coates (604) 522-6168
Other: Gerard Rejskind (450) 651-5720
NATIONAL NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTION:
Stonehouse Publications
85 Chambers Drive, Unit 2, AJAX, Ont. L1Z 1E2
Tel.: (905) 428-7541 or (800) 461-1640
SINGLE COPY PRICE: $4.99 in Canada, $4.99 (US) in the
United States, $7.50 (CAN) elsewhere (plus $1.10 per issue
for air mail if desired)
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
CANADA:
$25 for 6 issues*
USA:
US$25 for 6 issues
ELSEWHERE (surface mail): CAN$40 for 6 issues
*Applicable taxes extra
Air mail outside Canada/US: an extra $1.10 per issue
PRE-PRESS SERVICES: Multi-Média
PRINTING: Interglobe-Beauce
FILED WITH The National Library of Canada and
La Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec.
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product No. 0611387
Ultra High Fidelity Magazine invites contributions. Though
all reasonable care will be taken of materials submitted, we
cannot be responsible for their damage or loss, however
caused. Materials will be returned only if a stamped selfaddressed
envelope is provided. Because our needs are
specialized, it is advisable to query before submitting.
Ultra High Fidelity Magazine is completely independent of
all companies in the electronics industry, as are all of its
contributors, except as noted.
Editorial
Home theatre versus two-channel stereo
For quite a while now, I’ve been hearing industry people telling me that
two-channel stereo is dead, that you have to cater to home theatre or die. True?
Can you imagine Steinway saying that pianos are dead, that piano makers have
to offer Caribbean vacations or perish?
All right, perhaps it’s not quite that far-fetched. Movies and music are both
home entertainment. Still, life is not an either-or situation. Music and movies
are not a zero sum game.
It’s true that a speaker manufacturer can sell five or six speakers to a home
theatre enthusiast instead of only two. The bad news is that many of these
consumers want to pay the same price for six speakers as they would pay for
only two. That’s not something you can base a commercial coup on.
Things are more complex than they look. The majority of consumers who
have a DVD player and a large-screen TV are using only two speakers. And
they don’t plan ever to get more, because they don’t have the space, and there’s
nowhere to run the wires. At the same time, a number of audiophiles want
to hear their surround sound recordings as the producers meant them to be
heard.
The world is changing, that much is true. Companies struggling to adapt
can easily make really big mistakes. Read this issue, and you’ll find lots of
evidence.
The war winds down
No, I’m not referring to that little skirmish in Iraq. I’m talking serious
hostilities: DVD-Audio versus SACD. A year ago it looked like the Mother of
All Battles. Today? The troops of Sony and Philips are occupying the terrain.
It’s all over but the reconstruction.
What happened? Didn’t DVD-Audio have a natural advantage, with some
160 companies behind it, versus only two for SACD? What about the claim
that, within a year, all DVD video players would also read DVD-Audio? But
it never happened. It seems that if you have 160 parents, none of them would
take responsibility for feeding you.
Until now, we had been cautioning readers against investing money in
what could turn out to be the sonic equivalent of Betamax. The question is
now clear: DVD-A is Betamax, and SACD is VHS. The war is over.
UHF returns to Canada
Yes, of course we’ve been in Canada ever since the very first issue, back in
1982. But it is a not very well-known fact that our Web site (www.uhfmag.com)
had been in the US since 1998. From the point of view of visitors, of course,
the site could be in Tierra del Fuego for all it matters. We had moved because
Canada’s Internet infrastructure was then still in its infancy. We found what
we wanted with a supplier in Virginia…who later moved to New York State.
But a lot has happened since 1998…to the Internet and to us. We needed
even better facilities, and our long-time host didn’t have them. We found what
we needed at Planet Velocity in Toronto.
With added capacity, we can now envisage new services, which we will
announce over the next months.
2 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine