We have just received the first examples of this much awaited divergent LCD tech screens from Sharp. Basically they use an extra yellow Pixel in addition to the red green and blue and as such are offering new levels of brightness and vibrancy in their image reproduction capabilities.

from the CES 2010 is this very cool OLED screen with 40 percent transparency, this is very much from the annals of Sci Fi such as "Minority Report" and is a good example of narrative creating the techno magic that will no doubt soon be in everyday use.

We are often told that people don't realise you can still buy a standalone CD player. Certainly the word in big box land is that CD players are gone, replaced by DVD and now Blu-ray players. Well, as a small hifi store we have to admit we are a little confused, as we sell scores of CD players a month and stock upwards of thirty different models. Its still the predominant source in most of the systems we sell.

The fact of obsolescence rests uncomfortably on our industry.

The classic prevailing example of obsolescence is of course the computer industry, where our old friend Moore's law has dictated the doubling of hardware capacity every two years.

This may possibly be the best use of robotics so far...

"Willow Garage Beer fetching robot"

Without a doubt the iPod and its associated digital music formats has been the most significant force in the consumers spectrum of music opportunity. There is a significant harbinger of doom for the specialist Hi Fi business within this phenomenon and much has been written in the popular press of late wherin the iPod has been put forward as the death knell of conventional stereo useage. The Herald Tribune recently ran an article titled “portability trumps fidelity for music fans” and a number of respected figures from the studio production end of things have appeared in the press bemoaning the intrinsic lack of fidelity in the formats used by their end users in comparison to the ultimate care they take at the production end to produce the most realistic rendition of the original recording.

So Troy and I were early adopters of the iPad. He being an arch geek had one on order for six weeks from Apple on line, myself being a retail supporter bought one from Myers on the day of release. I think I beat him to ownership by an hour or two ... The immediate implications for our business of the iPad are through it's Control 4 and Crestron home control applications.

Dr Toole has a Phd from Imperial College and latterly is a lifelong CEDIA member after an illustrious career including Head of acoustical design for Harman International.

For anyone concerned with the room interaction effects of low frequencies there is a very cool set of (mostly comprehensible) lecture papers from 2002 online at the Infinity website entitled "Loudspeakers and Rooms for Multichannel Audio Reproduction".

The 50 winners of the coveted iF gold awards were announced at a lavish award ceremony at CeBIT. The Loewe Reference caused a sensation receiving a total three gold iF awards. The internationally renowned jury, which included designer Sophie Lovell (Berlin), Cédric Ragot (Montreuil) and Chiaki Murata (Osaka), had particular praise for the outstanding design of the Reference 52 TV, the Reference Sound Standspeaker electrostat speakers and the Reference Floor Panel Medium set-up option. “Here, once again, material and design quality are united in complete harmony. Understated, elegant and extremely unusual and innovative as an ensemble, Loewe succeeds in constantly surprising us and reinventing itself. The design, however, remains true to the line, fitting perfectly into the product range".

We note with no surprise that the Electrical Appliance chain of Clive Peeters has called in the Receivers this week with debts approaching 150 million dollars. LG Australia (who apparently made a $13,000 profit on a turnover of nearly $1 Billion) are said to be owed $25m, employees are likely to lose their entitlements, and customers are likely to lose their deposits.