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Pioneer.eu: Pioneer introduces its new range with, at the top of the line, the flagship models DEH-9300SD and DEH-8300SD. These models will be available from January 2011 at Pioneer car audio dealerships.

You can seamlessly connect your iPod, iPhone, CD, USB device, SD card or portable MP3 player. For those looking to add some extra power, both models offer complete flexibility when it comes to connecting extra amplifiers, speakers and subwoofers.

An SD card slot is discreetly hidden behind their front panels, compatible with SD and SDHC cards, and plays back a host of file formats from SD, including MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC files. A front USB input allows you to easily link USB audio devices.

The DEH-9300SD features a flap-type front panel that flips open at the touch of a button to reveal the CD and SD slots, and flips back once a format is inserted to maintain a clean dashboard look. With its Music Browser function it can automatically read the music from an SD/SDHC memory card or USB device and lists tunes alphabetically by artist, album, song or genre.

iPod Direct Control allows you to connect your iPod straight to the front USB terminal and enjoy superior sound, free from the static of an FM transmitter. As a handy extra, your iPod will charge while connected. A new “App mode” enables listening to music from various iPhone and iPod touch Apps, including games and internet radio (provided the app supports analogue audio output). An improved “Control mode” allows browsing through the songs on your iPod or iPhone with the tuner’s rotary knob.

With iTunes Tagging (currently in the UK only) on the DEH-8300SD, you can tag music to your iPod or iPhone as you listen to FM. When the iPod syncs to a computer, iTunes builds a tagged playlist so you can preview, buy, and download your selected songs.

Audiophiles can be assured of high-quality and pure audio with both units integrating high-grade audio parts such as a first-rate capacitor for the back-up line, a copper screw for PCB, Mecha and Power IC and a top-quality register for the audio line.

Full-dot OEL Displays make searching and selecting tracks from various sources more convenient. OEL technology also allows for wide viewing angles, active 3D visuals and high contrast and brightness, even in sunlight. All functions are managed through the single Rotary Commander or the optional IR remote.

The tuners boast many of the same features found in high-end home receivers including:

- high power output with the celebrated MOSFET 50 x 4 amplifier set-up for powerful sound reproduction
- a 5-band Graphic Equaliser (GEQ) to perfectly match the acoustics of your car
- Advanced Sound Retriever (ASR) technology to restore musical detail lost in the creation of compressed music files
- built-in crossovers and flexible audio/video connections utilising three pairs of pre-amp outputs (4-Volts).
 

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BBC: A new music file format has been unveiled by some of the key figures behind the development of the MP3.

The new file, MusicDNA, can include things like lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts, which will continually be updated, as well as the music.

It has been created by Norwegian developer Dagfinn Bach, who worked on the first MP3 player in 1993. And its investors include German researcher Karlheinz Brandenburg, who is credited with inventing the MP3.

British record company Beggars Group, whose labels are home to Vampire Weekend, MIA and The Strokes, has signed up to use MusicDNA, as has US label Tommy Boy.

But no major labels are currently on board and the MusicDNA files are likely to be more expensive than current music downloads.

It will also be in competition with Apple’s iTunes LP, which gives users added content including bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews.

Speaking at the Midem music conference, Mr Bach said: “We can deliver a file that is extremely searchable and can carry up to 32GB of extra information in the file itself. “And it will be dynamically updatable so that every time the user is connected, his file will be updated.”

MusicDNA is launching a beta, or test, version this spring with a full roll-out at the end of the summer. Mr Brandenburg, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Germany, said: “I think it brings together a number of ideas that have been around for a long time. “I remember 10 years ago, a lot of people were saying that we need to enrich the user experience, that legal access to music has to give the customers more than just music, and this is certainly one very nice way to do it.”

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BBC: The European Commission is calling for a suggested maximum volume to be set on MP3 players, to protect users’ hearing.

The commission wants all MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to share the same volume limits.

This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods.

EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One’s Politics Show. Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels.

In January, a two-month consultation of all EU standardisation bodies will begin on these proposals, with a final agreement expected in the spring.

Some personal players examined in testing facilities have been found to reach 120 decibels, the equivalent of a jet taking off, and no safety default level currently applies, although manufacturers are obliged to print information about risks in the instruction manuals.

Read the full story.

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CNet: French media behemoth Thomson has announced mp3HD, a new lossless ‘hybrid’ MP3 format, which not only offers the sound detail lost in a normal MP3, but remains compatible with your existing MP3 player or iPod.

It’s called mp3HD and still uses the traditional .mp3 file extension. Simply put, it works by storing a conventional lossy MP3 track that standard players can play, alongside a ‘lossless’ version — both audio streams are contained in one single MP3 file.

It’s similar to how hybrid SACDs work. Ideally this would appeal to users who want to enjoy lossless audio at home, and universally compatible MP3s on the commute, without having to rip two versions of the same song.

We’ve tested the format, ripping our own CDs using Exact Audio Copy and Thomson’s mp3HD command line encoder. A 6 minute 22 second mp3HD file (Pink Floyd’s Money), using default settings, gave us a 48MB file — just 5MB larger than a file ripped in FLAC, level 8. On a PC with Thomson’s mp3HD decoder plug-in installed, WinAmp played the 800Kbps (on average) lossless audio track, but when dragged into iTunes the same file played as a normal old 320Kbps MP3 file. It transferred without issue to an iPhone 3G and to a Cowon iAudio D2 MP3 player, and played without any problems. This is it: a lossless audio file, theoretically backwards compatible with all existing MP3 players!

Why wouldn’t everyone adopt this? Well, for a whole bunch of reasons, frankly.

At face value it’s remarkably convenient, like a car that doubles up as a plane. But like your aeromobile, there are problems for the average consumer.

Firstly, file size. A normal 320Kbps MP3 of the same Pink Floyd song was just 14.6MB, and 320Kbps is all you’ll hear if you listen to an mp3HD track on your iPod. But the lossless audio stored in the file will be stored on your iPod nevertheless, taking up precious storage space. (Although we should point out to audiophiles that the hybrid files are smaller than the combined size of a FLAC and 320Kbps MP3, although are less efficient to encode than FLAC.)

The second problem concerns compatibility. The joy of MP3 files, and the reason for their ubiquity in the marketplace, is their small size and compatibility with almost anything you throw at them. With mp3HD, not only are file sizes massive (making them impractical for small flash players), but you need to install plug-ins on your computer. True backwards compatibility would mean no additional software or updates were required.

Ideally you’d be able to transfer only the small, lossy part of the mp3HD to a portable player, leaving the lossless part (stored as what’s known as ‘correction data’) behind. But this would require additional software, and that means Average Joe won’t want to know about it.

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Electronista: Music from iTunes and other download stores now makes up exactly one third of all music sold in the US, according to NPD Group findings.

The jump comes after the number of buyers climbed from 28 million in 2007 to 36 million in 2008 and these new shoppers bought more tracks.

By contrast, CD sales have continued to plummet and saw about 17 million Americans stop buying CDs altogether in 2008, resulting in a drop for CD sales of about 19 percent. However, the researchers noted both that CD sales were not only declining faster than downloads could increase but that music sales as a whole were declining in the US; about 13 million fewer people bought music in any format last year.

Where 65 percent of those online bought some kind of music in 2007, 58 percent bought music the year later. The drops in purchases, and CDs in particular, are attributed to multiple factors that don’t necessarily involve purchasing. The NPD Group particularly notes that use of Pandora’s recommendation-based Internet radio doubled to make up 18 percent of people last year, while as much as 41 percent of college-age adults and 50 percent of teens listen to at least some of their music on social networks liky MySpace or the iLike app for Facebook.

Cautious spending in the recession also contributed, as did behavior for certain age groups; teens and adults over 50 were both significantly less likely to buy music. The shift is interpreted by NPD as a further signal that labels need to adapt their business models.

Although downloads are now one of the largest categories, they themselves are potentially threatened by streams. “Just as music piracy and the advent of digital music ended the primacy of the CD, we are beginning to see new forms of listening challenge the practice of paying for music,” said the NPD Group’s entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick.

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Engadget: Jonathan Berger, professor of music at Stanford (US), has been conducting some pretty interesting tests on incoming students, and he’s been recording results that’ll surely make audiophiles cringe.

He has been asking his students to listen to tracks in MP3 format as well as in formats of much higher quality, all while asking them to select the one they like best; increasingly, youngsters have been choosing the sizzling, tinny sounds of MP3 over more pure representations.

The reasoning may have more to do with psychology that audiology, as many conclude that generations simply prefer what they’re used to.

Ever known someone to swear that vinyl sounds best, pops and all? So yeah, what we’ve really learned is that MP3 is more of an “acquired taste,” but those still attempting to build their SACD collection should be genuinely afraid of the future.

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SlipperyBrick: Let’s say you still have a huge library of cassette tapes for some reason. Maybe you just hate to part with them. Maybe you’re cheap and treat yard sales like your own private iTunes. Whatever. Here’s a quick way to digitize those old tapes into MP3 formats.

It’s the TapeLink from Alesis. The recorder will do more then just make a copy. It will virtually remove all hissing or other abnormalities in sound quality and convert them to MP3’s.

Just plug it into the USB cable on your Mac or PC and you’re good to go. The bundled EZ Tape Converter makes transfer easy and convenient. The files can then be retrieved via USB on your computer to store on any device you want.

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EETimes: Everybody knows the MP3 data compression technology, but who knows the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits?

The institute, based in Erlangen, Germany, has created MP3 — but now it has found that time is ripe to replace MP3 through more modern technologies.

In order to achieve this goal, the institute invests €60 million.

Fraunhofer IIS and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg have launched the AudioLabs Erlangen research center. More than 100 researchers are working here on the development of future audio and video technologies with lossless data compression being an important topic. For instance, researchers are working on ‘scalable lossless’ systems based on HD AAC, explained Fraunhofer researcher Stefanie Frank.

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CrunchGear: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Dell “has been testing a digital music player that could go on sale as early as September.”

The music player will apparently feature a Wi-Fi connection and a “small navigation screen” which seems to indicate a touchscreen.

Dell is big, and these days it’s as much about the hardware as it is about the content deals you’re able to strike. Picture this, a Dell MP3 player with Wi-Fi connection directly into, say, Napster or Rhapsody, allowing you to download as much music as you want.

Alas, it seems that “Dell is working on software for a range of portable PCs that will let users download and organize music and movies from various online sources” which looks and sounds great on paper but might turn out to be a logistical nightmare in real life.

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Inquirer: Rumours are circulating that executives from Seattle-based Amazon’s MP3 Store have been in London to talk to major Brit record labels about a launch of the service in Europe, kicking off with the UK.

The usual suggestion that it will be Apple with its iTunes music store that will be shaking in its boots is somewhat tenuous. The major point about Amazon’s offering is that it is DRM free.

By contrast, we all know that Apple fanboys are perfectly prepared to put up with that company’s devious ways of tying customers into its hardware and Itunes software.

The suppliers who should be most afraid are those desperately trying to flog their wares to mobile phone users – especially since consumers are now just waking up to the fact that their phone is also a pretty decent MP3 player.

If handset users realise they can get their favourite tunes DRM-free from Amazon rather than have them tied to particular handset, the mobile operators are going to lose out.

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The Register: Blu-ray and MP3 may be conquering the world, but vinyl, CD and VHS still hold a special place in the hearts of UK adults, according to survey into so-called graveyard-bound technology.

A survey of just over 2000 people by Moneysupermarket.com discovered that the three aging media formats would each be a top ‘resurrection’ choice for most Blighty adults, should they have a chance to revive a technology that’s either been consigned to the dustbin or that’s on its way there.

Surprisingly, the humble telegram fell into fifth place – perhaps because some people like the idea of waiting several days for a message to arrive, instead of the near-instant delivery that email offers.

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ars technica: Napster launched its MP3 service this morning with 6 million unprotected MP3s and a library that the company claims is 50 percent larger than any other MP3 store in existence. The store is a direct attempt to challenge the dominance of iTunes and to take on Amazon MP3, which has been moving up in the ranks in terms of popularity. However, given Napster’s slight foibles with its MP3 store, it may find unseating iTunes and Amazon a little more difficult than expected.

The company originally announced its plans for an MP3 store in January, but with few details. Napster’s move to DRM-free sales is the latest in a long line of attempts to gain a larger share of the digital music market, after trying a number of other initiatives. The service has remained one of the most popular when it comes to subscriptions, but is still struggling for market share.

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