Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
All signs are leading to this, at least. According to Stuff Magazine, they’ve sacked the European PR team and moved the European marketing headquarters from Germany to an in-house department to Korea. Sales in the European continent are slim (were they ever rosy?), and this seems to be another victim of the iPod storm.
Basically the [...]
There was apparently an iPod shortage in European stores during the holidays: it mainly hit continental Europe; the British and Americans managed to get along with no “out of stock” warnings (if you exclude the 1GB iPod shuffle shortage in the US, that is).
Meanwhile, people just keep on writing articles about why Apple should open [...]
RealNetwork’s RealMusic service launches in the UK: subscriptions cost £8.50/month, single track downloads £0.99 and full albums £7.99. Radio, music videos and ringtones are also part of the service’s offering, which is PC/Mac compatible.
Interesting tidbit: according to the article, we should expect to see more European branches of RealMusic surface during the coming year.
Review: Cambridge Audio Azur 340A integrated amplifier (goes for a mere—in audiophile’s terms—$250, yet earns glowing review; “When you buy forty watts, you should know what you’re not getting. The thing is, the forty watts that the 340A does deliver are of excellent, in fact audiophile quality, and more than enough for most real-world listening.”; [...]