Specs & Pricing

Industry
NEWS
Chris Martens
Mary Cardas Joins NHT
On August 28, 2006, Benecia, California-based
NHT (Now Hear This) announced that industry
veteran Mary Cardas had joined the firm as its North
American Sales Manager. Cardas is a second-generation
contributor to the high-end audio industry, following in
the footsteps of her father George Cardas, founder of
the cable manufacturing company that bears his name.
Prior to joining NHT, Mary Cardas worked as
Managing Director of Cardas Audio and then as
National Sales Manager for Theta Digital. She later
worked for Sunfire Corporation and—most recently—
for Classic Records, a firm she helped to become one
of the most successful operations of its kind. Cardas
brings a wealth of experience to the table, which we
expect will benefit both NHT and its customers.
Directed Electronics Acquires Polk Audio
On September 25, 2006, Vista, California-based Directed Electronics announced
that it had successfully closed its acquisition of Polk Audio, purchasing the company for
approximately $136 million in cash. As many enthusiasts know, Directed Electronics entered
the home-audio market in a significant way via its 2004 acquisition of Definitive Technology,
another major manufacturer of loudspeakers. Now, with the Polk Audio acquisition, the firm
will vault to “the #1 position in the U.S. home-speaker market,” according to Jim Minarik,
President and CEO of Directed.
Under Directed ownership, Polk Audio will continue to operate as an independent entity,
just as Definitive Technology has done since it was bought by Directed two years ago. Many
believe, however, that the acquisition will create opportunities for active cooperation between
the two speaker manufacturers, in part because there is considerable shared history between
the companies. For example, Sandy Gross, founder of Definitive Technology and President
Emeritus and Chief Strategist for the Directed Home Audio group, began his career as a
founding partner of Polk Audio.
According to a Directed press release “Polk co-founders Matthew Polk and George
Klopfer will remain actively engaged after the transaction by using their 35 years of industry
experience to advise on the direction of Directed’s home-audio strategy.”
Reference Recordings
Celebrates 30th Anniversary
The year 2006 marks the 30 th anniversary of the founding of Reference
Recordings, an independent record label whose goal is and has always been
to create records that capture “the sound of real musicians making music
in real spaces.” Throughout its history, Reference Recordings has been led
by J. Tamblyn Henderson, Founder, President, and Producer; Keith O.
Johnson, Chief Engineer and Technical Director; and Marcia Martin, Vice
President and head of Business Affairs.
Johnson has received six Grammy nominations for “Best Engineered,
Classical” records, while Henderson was nominated for “Classical Producer
of the Year” in 1998. Apart from this recognition, Reference Recordings’
artists and productions have garnered five other nominations, producing
two winners. These awards seem even more remarkable in light of the
fact that Reference has been extremely selective in issuing new material,
releasing only about 110 titles in the label’s 30-year history.
Part of the label’s success can be attributed to the creativity and technical
acumen of Keith Johnson, an acknowledged audio legend. Johnson
was co-developer of the High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD)
process, the creator of the optical tracking servos now standard in CD
players, the developer of the first polyphonic sound-sampling synthesizer,
and the engineer for the world’s first direct-to-CD recordings [RR-30DCD
and RR-50DCD]—recordings that demonstrated the now well-known
importance of low digital jitter. But impressive though these technical
accomplishments are, the music, in the end, is what matters most.
We asked Reference representatives to name six recordings that could
serve as an introduction to the label’s overall catalogue, and the following
titles were culled from Keith Johnson’s personal list of favorites:
1. RR-2102: Medinah Sessions/
Chicago Pro Musica
2. RR-57: Rutter Requiem/Turtle
Creek Chorale and Dallas
Women’s Chorus, Timothy
Seelig, conductor
3. RR-59: From the Age of Swing/Dick Hyman with Phil
Bodner, Urbie Green, Milt Hinton, Butch Miles, Bucky
Pizzarelli, Joe Temperly, Frank Wess, and Joe Wilder
4. RR-71: Exotic Dances From the Opera/Minnesota
Orchestra, Eiji Oue conductor
5. RR-76: Holidays and Epiphanies: Music of Ron Nelson/
Dallas Wind Symphony, Jerry Junkin conductor
6. RR-96: Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances/Minnesota
Orchestra, Eiji Oue conductor
Anniversaries are times for looking back, but also for looking ahead, and
Reference Recordings is at work on new releases that will do a bit of both.
Looking back, Reference plans to restore and then release a recording of
Virgil Fox’s 1976 San Francisco Bach Gamut concert (Johnson recorded
the concert, but the material was never previously released). Reference
most recently issued World Keys (reviewed in Issue 165), the solo debut
album of pianist Joel Fan, who is a member of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road
Ensemble. We hope Reference will continue to capture the sound of real
musicians performing in real spaces for many years to come.
18 December 2006 The Absolute Sound