uavKim Wilson

What really stood out at this year's CEDIA in Denver was the number of companies showing media servers. They have certainly grown in popularity, especially within the custom-installation world. Not that many years ago, media servers were the exception, and now they are the norm for those ultra-high-end, multi-zone, music/video systems. As high-resolution downloadable media (audio and video) become more available, then media servers are likely to be our main, if not our only, source device.

If you are at all familiar with "audiophile music," then you've heard of Chesky Records, which was founded by David and Norman Chesky all the way back in the last century. Their philosophy was to capture the spaciousness of "live music" in their recordings. If you want to know more about their history, go to <A HREF="http://www.chesky.com/core/body_about.cfm
">Chesky Records</A>, which is still alive and well.

Is classical music your thing, specifically the works of Norwegian composers and musicians? Then you have to check out <A HREF="http://www.2l.no/2L.htm">2L</A>, a Grammy award-winning Norwegian label that offers recordings in 24-bit/96kHz, mixed in 5.1 surround sound.

I had an opportunity to meet Mark Waldrep, owner of <A HREF="http://www.aixrecords.com/">AIX Records</A>, yesterday in his studio here in Los Angeles. Mark is probably the most out-spoken advocate for high-definition audio in the industry. As he points out, all too often high-definition audio is associated with lossless tracks that are downloaded from services such as MusicGiants, HDTracks, and the B&W Music Club. However, Mark vehemently disagrees with this definition.