The Week in Review: May 1-7, 2000

Last week's features at 3DsoundSurge

FPS2000 Giveaway!!
Creative Labs is sponsoring a contest where (if you live in North America) you can win a set of FPS2000 speakers.

MidiLand ADS-2000 Dolby Digital Decoder
Until now, stand alone hardware Dolby Digital decoders have typically been too expensive to rationalize their purchase for use with speaker systems costing around the same or less. Now, thanks to MidiLand, that has changed and anyone can have access to a hardware Dolby Digital decoder for just 100 dollars and it even includes a remote! The decoder is called the Audio Digital Station ADS-2000. In this review we will compare it to the decoder in the DTT2500, as well as compare it to the software AC3 decoding to a 4-speaker down-mix on several sound cards as well as the 5.1 analog software support offered by Best Data’s Theatrix and Skywell’s Magic Sound Live when they are used with a supporting software MPEG decoder.

Altec Lansing ADA880 Dolby Digital System Reviewed
In this review we take a close look at the Altec Lansing ADA880 Dolby Digital speaker system. This system uses a virtual center channel, which allowed Altec Lansing to put more emphasis into a more powerful amplifier and better quality speakers, including an 8" subwoofer driver powered by 40 Watts RMS. If you check out the review you will learn that this subwoofer delivers deep and powerful bass that can really shake your room! Of course, there’s lots more to a good system than bass and this review looks at all of the key criteria and compares the ADA880 against other popular systems such as the Cambridge SoundWorks DTT2500 and VideoLogic DigiTheater and also looks at how it compares with WinDVD 4-speaker down-mixing. You will even learn about a surprisingly effective special feature offered by the ADA880 in the form of its optional rear channel virtualization! For all the details check out the full review.

Last week's sound news

Drivers and bugs

• New Live! Drivers
  Creative has released new drivers for their line of Sound Blaster Live cards. It's not available from Creative's SoundBlaster.com site so you have to grab them from Creative's Asian (Singapore) site. The reported changes are:
  • Updated version of Surround Mixer 1.0 and AudioHQ.
  • 1024-voice software MIDI synth for Sound Blaster Live! (Option to select up to 1024 software voices)
  • Improved support for Occlusion and Obstruction effects in EAX2.0.

  I am assuming that the new part about the MIDI synth is the ability to set just how many voices the software synth uses as the version in LW3.0 already does 1024 voices.

• New Creative Windows 2000 Sound Card Drivers (not Live)
  Creative Singapore once again has the jump on all the other Creative sits with new Windows 2000 drivers for the Sound Blaster VIBRA128 (Model No. CT4810, CT4811 & CT4812), Sound Blaster PCI128 (Model No. CT4750 & CT4751 - this installation does not support CT 4700 and 1370-based card models) and Sound Blaster (Ensoniq) AudioPCI (Model No. CT4740 & CT481x). For all three files just head over to Creative Singapore’s download page.
  
• New ForteMedia FM801 Win9x and Win2K Drivers
  Thanks to RonnieG for pointing out that ForteMedia has released new Win9x and Win2K drivers (their page shows file dates of April 25th, 2000 for both versions) for their FM801 based cards. I have not tried them yet myself but they should work fine with the Skywell Magic Sound Live and the Best Data Theatrix. You can download the drivers from ForteMedia.
  
• Parametric EQ unlocked on SBLive!
  Our thanks goes out to DublF for his forum post pointing out an unofficial patch for the Sound Blaster Live that unlocks the parametric EQ! I don't like to do a direct link to files on other peoples servers but its not that easy to find on the site so here is the direct link  (42 kb). You can find more info about this tool in this thread in our forum.
  

New games, demos, patches and bugs

• Die Hard Trilogy 2:Viva Las Vegas Demo
  A demo has just been released for the A3D 2.0 supporting Die Hard Trilogy 2 (which is in stores). You can check out a short article on the music in the game over at Avault. Grab the 33 MB demo from 3Dfiles. If it looks and sounds like your kind of game then you can order it online for only $29.95 from Gamestop where you will also find more information about the game.

• Drakan 445 Patches Released
  Surreal Software's Stuart Denman has made the following update to the Surreal Tech Page

  Psygnosis QA has FINALLY given approval to release the 445 patch for German, Italian, Spanish, French, and Japanese. You can download the patches from here. The German patch now also supports the version of Drakan that shipped with 3rd party hardware (OEM).
  WARNING: This patch will invalidate your old saved games. If you want to continue to use your old single-player saved games and still get the single-player fixes, please keep the 444 patch. You can still download it from here. Patch 445 is recommended mainly for multiplayer users.

• New Half-Life mod (Firearms)
  A new mod for Half-Life, Firearms, has been released. It's still beta but it's supposed to be one of the better Half-Life mods so could be worth to check it out. You can find more info at the official site
  
• Quake3 patch
  A new patch (1.17) for the once A3D 2.0 supporting Quake3 has been released. For me this patch just like the 1.16 one breaks A3D when I use a Vortex2 based card. There are some people that have managed to get A3D working using the 1.16 patch but so far none said it works with the 1.17. You can check out this thread in our forum for more details. You can grab the patch from 3dfiles.
  
• SoF A3D and EAX issues
  Raven's Jake Simpson has done the following update to his .plan file

  We found the cause of the EAX and A3D problems after the 1.04 patch. (And before the patch in the case of A3D).

  For EAX, the patch deleted EAXsnd.dll, ready for the new one that was supposed to be installed. Of course, since this was yanked at the last minute, there isn't one. So it got deleted and not recreated. No wonder EAX doesn't work. :)

  You can either go to one of the SOF websites out there and grab it - I just sent Email to everyone (or got Kenn to :)) with this file, - or you can re-install the original version of SOF, copy out the file, install the patch, and then put it back. We apologise for the mistake on our end for this. This is our fault, and we take the responsibility for it.

  A3D. We shipped with an old version of A3DAPI.dll. This is why some are having problems with Montego II cards and the mx300 in some cases. Again, go to any of your favorite SOF websites, and the revised version of a3dapi.dll should be there for download. Just replace the original version in windows/system and Raven/sof and you are good to go. This will be updated in all future patches. Not quite sure how this one happened - we should have shipped with the latest version. Still, at least we caught it. Happy noise making.:)

  We and some other sites (e.g. Vortex of Sound) reported about the A3D issue months ago so surprised this is news to Raven. If you have not installed the latest A3D files I suggest you grab the A3D files from A3D.com rather than trying to get just the last a3dapi.dll file from one of the SoF fan sites. If you already have installed the latest A3D files you should already have the new a3dapi.dll file (3.12) in your windows\system folder so you just have to delete or rename the one in the SoF folder.

  Also worth knowing that according to Travis (Vortex2 owner) even after removing the old a3dapi.dll file in the SoF folder 4-speaker still fails to work. If anyone got 4-speaker support to work in SoF using a Vortex2 card let me know.

• Windows Media Player 7 Beta supports SRS WOW 3-D Audio Enhancement
  Microsoft last Tuesday announced the immediate availability of the beta version of Microsoft® Windows Media(TM) Player 7. The beta release, available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ furthers Microsoft's efforts to bring digital media to the mainstream by enabling consumers to enjoy a full range of digital media activities, including CD audio playback, streamed and downloaded audio and video, jukebox capabilities for CD recording, media management, and Internet radio. The Windows Media Player 7 beta version introduces pioneering new features including SRS WOW(TM) 3-D audio enhancement technology. You can find a lot more details in the press release. SRS also issued their own press release about Microsoft's decision to include SRS WOW as part of Microsoft Windows® Media Player.
  
• FMOD 3.2 Sound and Music Programmers Library Released!
  The FMOD 3.2 Sound and Music Programmers Library is out now. This release is a big one as the FMOD 3.2 sports support for EAX 2 and A3D 3.0. They are also giving away a couple of soundcards to celebrate this big release. Here is the feature list ripped from their web site.

  • DX7 support added. This adds more hardware voices than previously possible before.
  • EAX 2.0 support added! Go nuts on those advanced reverb parameters!
  • A3D 3.0 support added!
  • Realtime full duplex recording support added!
  • Volume ramping / de-clicking software mixer added!
  • MMX quality mixer speed increased AGAIN to crazy speeds! Check out the new comparison charts.
  • FMOD Standalone player updated to support MP3,WAV & A3D3 and 48khz support! Also check out the new software reverb!
  • New music callbacks! FMUSIC_SetRowCallback, FMUSIC_SetOrderCallback.
  • Callbacks and FSOUND_Stream_GetTime now are now latency adjusted, so when you get a callback or read a time value, it is relevant to when you HEAR the sound, not when it is mixed.
  • FSOUND_SetMinHardwareChannels and FSOUND_SetMaxHardwareChannels added. Great for controlling 3d hardware resources!
  • Delphi and Visual Basic interface added! (these are still in beta)
  • New documentation layout! Tutorials section and neater documentation file!

  They also note that FMOD has been thoroughly tested and improved in real game environments and is solid as a rock! For more details, including how you can win either an Aureal Vortex 2 SQ2500 or a Creative Sound Blaster Live! soundcard head over to www.fmod.org. Thanks to Brett for the news.

Reviews of soundcards, speakers, headphones and MP3 players.

• Aztech PCI 288Q3DII
  Hardware Zone has posted a review of the Aztech PCI 288Q3II, which used the Trident 4DWave-NX Chipset. One common error in the review is the get a bit mixed up on QSound and Q3D 2.0 as its not a stand alone API, is a 3D technology that used DS3D with EAX rather than emulates it. The card, as they note, also does a good job of A3D 1.x to DS3D translation. In terms of their feature set overview I have nothing to say as a couple of the paragraphs of the technical overview were lifted basically word for word (without our knowledge) from our review of Trident’s 4DWave NX reference board! Moving back to their own text, they note that EAX should not be felt in two speaker mode which does not make sense given that EAX 1.0 that the card support is reverb which you should be able to notice with even one speaker! Its also worth noting that 3d sound in Q3A can only work if they installed Aureal’s A2D drivers. I have not tried the Soldier of Fortune retail version but I know that the demo requires either full A3D 2.0 or EAX 2.0 support for 3D sound to work so I assume the retail version either has an option for plain DS3D or the unified EAX driver that is supposed to enable EAX 1.0 cards to work with EAX 2.0 games is working in the retail version SofF. The review also offers some ZD Audio benchmarks with two different systems than what we tested. For much more details on the card and performance, including some of the same words ;), you can read our review of the 4DWaveNX reference board! For the record, it is flattering to be used as a resource for reviews, but its still surprising to find two paragraphs of your own words in someone else’s review when that person never bothered to ask or at least list us as a reference site for the review.
  
• Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo
  Rizenet has posted a review of Guillemot’s Maxi Sound Fortissimo. Just a couple of comments. You won't get 4 speaker 3d sound in Homeworld because Homeworld unfortunately supports neither A3D or DS3D. In Unreal Tournament you have enable 3d sound support in the config options, and it appears the reviewer must not have done so given their comments as 3D sound and EAX support on the Fortissimo is actually very good! When it comes to output level of the card for their Takstar headphones, I have no idea why they had too low a line out level given that the Takstar headphones have their own built in amplifier which is used when the headphones are in "force feedback" mode. Its more likely that the batteries for the headphones were low but its worth noting that the Fortissimo is simply performing in this regard like most modern soundcards, as it does not have an amplified line out. Headphone support in the way most of us think of it (that is 3d sound quality) is very good on the Fortissimo. Its also worth noting that 4 speaker 3d audio on the Fortissimo is again very good. Again, I can only assume that they did not test with the right games or options enabled given their conclusion that the 4 speaker surround is poor. As for using the card with 5.1 systems. Its again a good choice if you have a decoder that uses an optical output, and the latest retail boxes have even added the excellent PowerDVD 2.5 into the bundle so you get AC3 4 speaker downmixing right out of the box if you have a DVD player!
  
  Computers R Us has also posted a review of the Guillemot's 4-speaker YMF744 based soundcard card Maxi Sound Fortissimo. They thought the card was pretty good, a bit more CPU usage than some other cards but not a big deal. For a second and more detailed opinion you can check out Mark's review of this card
  
• Monster Sound MX400
  Digital Web 3D has posted a review of Diamond's MX400. They found it to be clearly better than the Live but behind the Vortex2. I'm not sure exactly what they put into sound quality. If it's 3D sound using headphones or 2-speakers I agree that the Live is clearly behind both cards using Sensaura and Vortex2 based cards. I don't think that's the case if you use 4-speakers though. For more about my impression about Sensaura you can check out our review of Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo. Based on some testing of the MX400 using the DMX card (both use the Canyon3D chipset) I can say the reverb and 3D sound quality are almost identical for the MX400 and Fortissimo.

  The review also includes benchmark using Quake3 and I don't think that's good benchmark. It tells you how A3D2 games will perform on these cards but since almost every other A3D2 game also support DS3D with EAX it's not that interesting comparison. Also worth nothing that A3D doesn't seem to work on the Vortex2 if you install the latest patch for Quake3. A couple of other bits -- the $49 price is not the SRP and there is really no Sensaura API.

• CPX Multimedia Ports
  Tweak Town has posted a short review of the CPX Multimedia Ports. The CPX Multimedia Ports is an new product designed to relocate the basic soundcard ports from the back of the computer to the front of your computer via a unit that fits into a free drive bay. These connections include Earphone, Microphone, Audio-In and Game Ports with upgrades for USB, Serial, Parallel and Video available at a added price.
  
• LCS-2514
  Ga-Hardware has completed a review of Labtec's $80 4-speaker system, the LCS-2514. They found the sound quality especially bass to be really good. No mention how it compares to the FPS1000 or Altec Lansing's ACS54 that both have SRP of less than $100 and can be easily found for less than $70. Based on their comments it looks like it could match or perhaps even beat the ACS54. Probably should ask Labtec to send this one to us so we can check it out.
  
• ACS56
  Altec Lansing just let me know that PlayNOW posted a review of their ACS56 speaker system a couple weeks ago. It's a very positive review that also includes a bit on what a difference 4-speakers makes to games using 3D sound. One clear difference compared to my review is that I considered the ACS56 to be a midrange performer with an excellent price tag while this review thinks it's high quality but expensive. I guess this reviewer thinks 150 US dollars are about as much as you can pay for computer speakers while I also consider much more expensive systems like VideoLogic's Sirocco Crossfire to be an option. For more about my impression of the ACS56 check out my review
  
• MidiLand S4 7100 5.1 Speaker System
  3Dhardware.net has posted a very positive review of the MidiLand S4 7100 5.1 ready speaker system. Aside from the usual impressions, the review contains an excellent overview of the system. One thing worth noting is, as per the manual, the review notes that the satellites start to crossover to the subwoofer at 4 kHz. Again, as the review notes, that is a rather high crossover frequency and based on my own testing with a frequency test CD and sound level meter it seems that the satellites don't start to notably attenuate until about 150 Hz (which is actually quite low) so the gap that the manual would have you believe exists, is not really there. Its either a typo in the manual (which has more than its share) or the attenuation from 4 kHz is incredibly low. My last comment is with respect to the comments on cost-performance ratio. After Mark exchanged a couple of emails with the reviewer I can add that the context for those comments is not that the 7100 offers the outright best quality sound on the market (as they don't). Its more that for a street price of around $150 you get a 5.1 ready system, that can also be configured to 4.1 and other modes, a bunch of really neat extras like the control module, the tilt design of the satellites and other nice touches like gold-plated connections along with good quality sound. I can add that the 7100 can put out a very high sound pressure level (louder, but not better, than the ProMedia that's currently shipping). Look for lots more on what we think of this system and how it holds up to our own tests later this month. In the mean time you can read about the system's abilities over at 3DHardware.
  
• Altec Lansing ACS54
  The Game Den has posted a review of Altec Lansing's ACS54, a low cost, entry level 4.1 system and they were quite impressed. For all of the reasons why check out their review. For a second, and also positive, opinion of the ACS54 you can check out our own review.
  
• Rome MP3
  Electronic Review Zone has posted a review of the Rome MP3 player. This is a rather different unit than the typical portable MP3 player as it can be "played" as a normal audio cassette making it perfect for in car us. This is a nicely written review well worth checking out.
  
• D-Link DMP-100 Mp3 Player
  Gamers Depot has posted a review of the D-Link MP3 Player, DMP-100. Key features are voice recording, 32MB of storage space, memory slot, parallel port interface, earphones and of course playback of MP3 files. All this for $130 isn't bad and the detailed review is also overall positive.
  
• IplayMp3 Moveman
  3Dhardware net has posted a review of the IplayMp3 Moveman. The review notes that the "Moveman Mp3 player comes with 56 or 80 megs of ram, is pretty compact, and employs an ingenious USB CF (Compact Flash I, II) card reader…a pretty cool set of headphones" and is affordably priced ($250 with 56 MB flash card). If you get the impression that they liked the unit then your right! The review also answers most of the important questions with the only one left unanswered for me is bit rate support. Overall a good read well worth checking out!

Other sound news

• WinHEC Coverage (Santa Cruz)
  GA-Hardware has posted an article about the stuff they found interesting on WinHEC's Opening Day. When it comes to sound they have a bit on Turtle Beach's upcoming Santa Cruz which will feature Sensaura, MP3 decoding and the VersaJack. If you have no idea what the VersaJack is, the article will answer that question.
  
• Aureal news
  Vortex of Sound has posted some of what they know about the current situation at Aureal. They mention that more people left Aureal, there are new WDM drivers in testing and as far as they know Aureal isn't in discussion to sell the company or its technology to Creative Labs. The Creative Labs rumour has been posted in both Vortex of Sound's and our forum but when I checked the Creative they said that rumour is incorrect. If you check out Vortex of Sound's forum you will also see a new rumour that claims the company Aureal currently talks to is Nvidia but this has been denied by other sources. Nvidia earlier this year confirmed that they would enter the sound chip business again but at that time they were not sure if it would be a discrete audio chip or an integrated graphics/audio chip. I don't think they will buy the Aureal technology though. I also expect their audio chips if it's ever released will mostly target set-top box/game console market not PC soundcards sold at retail.
  
• Cirrus Logic, Creative Technology and Vertex Join Forces
  Cirrus Logic last Thursday disclosed that it has signed a definitive agreement with Creative Technology and Vertex Technology Fund (II) to form eMicro Corporation, a fabless joint manufacturing venture based in Singapore. Under terms of the agreement, eMicro will become licensee of Cirrus Logic's proprietary circuits -- and a strategic supplier of audio codecs and other mixed-signal chip solutions to Creative Technology.

  Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and chief executive officer of Creative Technology, sees his firm's investment in eMicro ensuring a local and timely access to the advanced chip development capabilities required to meet the demand for increasingly sophisticated consumer electronics products. ``The formation of eMicro not only puts in place Singapore-based semiconductor engineering talent to support our system developers in the region, but it also creates an opportunity for synergy with Cirrus Logic, the technology and market leader in mixed-signal ICs.''

  You can find more details about the deal in the press release

• More on REVAT True Fidelity
  You may recall the PR we posted a couple of days ago on JAM Technologies REVA (TM) True Fidelity (R) audio amplifier which they state brings ultra-high resolution audio to computers at no increase in cost. I am not sure how many of you followed up on those links but there is some really interesting reading to be found at their web site and there is also a PDF white paper on "Class J" amplification that we have locally for your convenience (their site is slow every time I have tried it) in either a zipped (213 kb) or unzipped (390 kb) format. According to their FAQ, Class J amplification, which is being introduced by REVA™ True Fidelity®, offers the first transformer-less, high-quality, high-power, all-digital audio amplification technology that generates an output voltage that is 300-400% of the supply voltage. This technology can be effectively used with the low voltages associated with PC power supplies to deliver high quality, high power, all-digital output directly to any conventional, non-self-powered speaker. The FAQ also notes that speakers respond as well to digital signals as they do to analog signals. Here’s a snip

  As with all things digital, when the resolution is fine enough, the result resembles analog. Consider, for example, a high quality, 1200 dots-per-inch laser printer, in which the resolution is so fine that the individual dots are no longer distinguishable as dots to the human eye. Similarly, the ultra high resolution of REVA™ True Fidelity® makes the individual pulses indistinguishable as pulses, resulting in clear, high quality audio.

  We will be following up on this new technology through out the coming weeks but you can do your own follow-up by checking out the official JAM Technologies web site and/or reading the white paper. Special thanks goes out to Gary Gensel, who took the time to compile the official REVA FAQ to a text format and mail it to us along with the PDF file.

• Boston Acoustics and S3 Announce Co-Branding Partnership
  Boston Acoustics and S3's Diamond Multimedia last Wednesday announced a joint partnership to co-brand digital audio devices. Under the terms of the partnership, Boston Acoustics and S3 plan to leverage each other's expertise in analog and digital audio technology to design and develop the latest in digital audio products. Boston Acoustics will become S3's speaker technology partner. Boston Acoustics speaker technology will be embedded into S3's future digital audio products. In addition, Boston Acoustics plans to develop co-branded retail audio products, which incorporate the Rio Audio technology. The first co-branded product from S3 and Boston Acoustics is slated for fall 2000, with additional products in development. For a some quotes from the respective companies you can check out the full press release. S3 also released a separate press release where they announced that Boston Acoustics is the first partner in the Rio Audio(TM) branding program. Thanks to Fred Mah for the pointer.
  
• Bill Gate's Sound System!
  If you are curious about Bill Gate's home theater setup you can check out our forum where glyphin reports on the Gate's system courtesy of a meeting he had with the audio/video consultant who designed it.
  
• Micronpc.com PCs Feature Speakers from Altec Lansing
  Altec Lansing Technologies, Inc. Monday last week announced a new partnership with PC maker and e-services company Micron Electronics, Inc., in which Altec Lansing will bundle its newest computer speaker systems with micronpc.com computers. Select micronpc.com Millenniar Series computer systems will now be accompanied by Altec Lansing award-winning computer speaker systems including ACS21MW, ACS33MW, ATP3W and the ACS56MW. You can find more details in the press release. You can also check out my ACS56 review
  
• LAVA! 3D MusicVideo SHOWDOWN CONTEST IS LIVE!
  Michael VALERA, Technical Marketing Coordinator for Lava.com sent us the following e-mail

  LAVA! 3D MusicVideo SHOWDOWN CONTEST IS LIVE!:
  LAVA.com is putting on a competition for all you video visionaries out there. What we're gonna do is drop next months' Featured Artist MP3 onto LAVA.com and allow you to get funky with it. That's right, you
  will be the visual scientist and get to show off your skills. Feel free to take any scene and manipulate it using any original textures, objects or artwork that fits in with the mood of the song. When you are finished, submit your masterpiece and we will post it for the entire world to judge. The top three videos will win a dope prize, and the video with the most votes will be featured on LAVA.com as the
  "Featured Artist Video of the Month."

  This is what you can win:

  1st Prize Creative Nomad 64: Welcome to the next generation of Portable audio, the Creative NOMAD Digital Audio Player delivers superior digital sound in a compact non-mechanical device. This thing sounds dope, and it is yours if you bust out the freshest video in the showdown. As if that weren't enough, the first place winner also gets their LAVA! 3D MusicVideo used on LAVA.com for the Featured Artist cut next month.

  2nd Prize Sound Blaster Live! Platinum: The audio solution for the ultimate in PC sound. Whether you are a hardcore gamer, music producer, or an MP3 listener, get the best out of your multimedia experience with the big-daddy of sound car

  3rd Prize Video Blaster WebCam Go: Check this thing out... It's a WebCam... It's a Portable Camera... All in One!! The power of Video capture at your computer or on the go. Take it anywhere, Photograph anything, and download them to your computer. And yes, the WebCam can be used from inside your LAVA! Producer with it's integrated WebCam controls to create some wicked scenes.

  Enter the contest at http://www.lava.com/ today!

• MD-Port AN1 from Xitel
  Xitel has updated their website with a page on their new product MD-Port AN1. It's a device that allows you to send MP3s and CD tracks to your MD recorder over the USB bus
  
• RioPort Licenses AAC >From Dolby Laboratories
  Dolby Laboratories has announced that RioPort has licensed Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) technology for use in its RioPort Audio Manager software and related production and delivery tools. AAC is the latest audio coder standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as part of the MPEG specification. Compared with MP3 (MPEG Layer-3), AAC, provides, according to Dolby, higher- quality music while requiring approximately 30% less storage and/or bandwidth. You can find many more interesting details about the deal and AAC if you read the press release.

  In a separate press release InterTrust Technologies  announced its strong support for RioPort, Inc.'s license of the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) mentioning that RioPort will now be able to provide the market with high-quality tools and player products that are SDMI-compliant and MetaTrust-Certified(TM).

• AIWA will introduce a car CD/MP3 player in June
  Reaffirming its commitment to the car audio market, AIWA early this year introduced a new line of CD receivers, cassette receivers and CD changers. In CD receivers, AIWA's most innovative new model is the CDC-MP3, equipped with a CD player able to play MP3-encoded discs. Typically, these would be CD-R discs onto which a consumer, using a CD-R/RW recorder, has recorded MP3 files downloaded from the Internet. Other CDC-MP3 features include a power output of 45 watts X 4, full flap type detachable front panel, CD changer control, four-color LCD dot matrix display, two preamp outputs, steering wheel remote control, Advanced H-Bass, Source Level Adjustment, My Information and Advanced DSSA. The CDC-MP3 will be available in June at a suggested retail price of $350.00. Check out the press release for details about AIWA's other CD receivers, cassette receivers and CD changers.
  
• I-Jam Multimedia announces Win-Jam
  I-Jam Multimedia and Microsoft last Tuesday unveiled the new Win-Jam Digital Music Player, the first device to exclusively support the Microsoft® Windows Media(TM) Format. Other features include up to eight hours of operation, earphones, USB interface, Large LCD display shows track numbers and elapsed time, two multimedia card (MMC) slots, compact design measuring 4x2.5 inches, low battery warning, electronic volume control, repeat and shuffle play. The Win-Jam Digital Music Player is scheduled to be available in July for a suggested retail price of $129.99. For more details and why they choose to support the Windows Media format exclusively check out the press release.
  
• S3 Announces Long-term Strategy for Its Rio Digital Audio Line
  S3 last Tuesday officially announced its long-term strategy for its Diamond Multimedia Rio technology. The company plans to extend the Rio digital audio experience throughout the home and into the lifestyles of customers. S3 is focusing these efforts on three key initiatives -- the Rio Audio(TM) branding program, home and car audio and a family of third generation portable players. For all the details check out the press release.  
  
• Over Two-Thirds of Online Music Shoppers Expect Free Downloads
  Over 66 percent of 5,200 online music shoppers have not paid for (and would not expect to pay for) digital music downloads, according to Greenfield Online's e-Merging Music II research report. In total, 45 percent of respondents have downloaded music from the Internet.

  Another interesting bit is that the price is a driving force for nearly 80 percent of online music shoppers. This means that if consumers can find the item for a lower price elsewhere, either online or offline, that's where the transaction will occur. More than half of respondents (55 percent) shopped for music online and then purchased offline, while 53 percent shopped for and purchased music online in the past 90 days. You can find more details about the survey in the press release

• Sony and Universal Subscription-based Service
  Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced last Tuesday that they have agreed to enter into a joint venture to develop a subscription-based service which will include various music and video offerings for the Internet across multiple platforms such as computers, wireless personal devices, and set-top boxes. Both companies will license content to the new venture.
  
• MP3.com Receives Judge's Opinion, increase traffic and cuts new deal
  Last Thursday, United States District Court Judge Jed Rakoff issued a written opinion detailing his summary judgement order granted to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against San Diego-based MP3.com, on April 28. For what the judge said check out this Reuters story. According to MP3.com, the court's statements were anticipated. You can see their full response in the press release.

  Another Reuters story says the MP3.com traffic hasn't been hurt by the recent rulings and in fact has increased 4% to 328,000 unique visitors last week. Napster saw an even bigger increase to 553,000 unique visitors, that's up 20%. I have to say I'm surprised that the traffic hasn't increased more but I guess it's almost every week some big story about MP3.com and Napster.

  More important than the increased traffic for MP3.com last week is that they managed to cut a licensing agreement with the American performing rights organization, Broadcast Music Incorporated, widely known as BMI. More than 140,000 U.S. songwriters and composers and over 60,000 U.S. publishers are represented by BMI. This licensing agreement will allow MP3.com to perform the BMI repertoire of more than 4.5 million recognizable compositions from within the MP3.com site. You can check out the press release for more details

• Metallica Speaks: Put Napster out of Business
  That's the title of an article over at Yahoo. There is also a similar more focused second article that looks at the fact that Metallica is compiling a list of Napster users! Lars Ulrich, drummer for the heavy-metal band Metallica, suggested that the U.S. Congress should step in to stop MP3-swapping services like Napster "before this whole Internet thing runs amok." I find it somewhat ironic that a band like Metallica is first out of the block in terms of kicking up a stink about Napster, but when you consider the age bracket of people downloading digital music, it may be bands like Metallica that have the most to fear.
  
• Napster Responds to Metallica Action
  As you know Lars Ulrich, a member of the music group Metallica, and the band's attorney were personally delivering documents to its San Mateo offices where Napster has been named as a defendant in an action brought by Metallica and its business units, E.M. Ventures and Creeping Death Music, alleging copyright infringement and related claims. In response, Napster's counsel, Laurence Pulgram, at Fenwick & West, LLP in San Francisco, stated:
  ``Napster intends to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and it takes those obligations seriously. Napster will review the over 300,000 fan names that Metallica turned in as soon as possible. If the claims are submitted properly, the company will take the appropriate actions to disable the users Metallica has identified. Of course, if the band would provide the names in computerized form, rather than in tens of thousands of pages of paper intended to create a photo opp, that would expedite the process.''

  ``It is important to understand that Napster does not itself make available any MP3 materials over the Internet. Napster merely provides computer software that allows its users to choose which files to make available to each other, and which files to download. As we told Metallica's lawyer on April 20, Napster is able to respond to claims of copyright infringement by disabling the access of identified users, not by excluding particular songs or artists. So the upshot of Metallica's notice may be to prevent its fans from using Napster at all.''

  You can find more details in the press release.

  In related law suit Reuters last Wednesday reported that the music industry expects a decision any day in its lawsuit against Napster.
  

For more news from last week check out our news archive.

Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurge

• Optical Digital in/out 2 card (This week)
• MidiLand S4 7100
• A review of PowerDVD 2.55
• Diamond Audio ProMedia 3025

As always if you have any ideas for products we should review or features we should do, please let us know.

Previous "The week in review".

Subscribe to our 3D Audio Week in Review Newsletter