The story of the failure of SACD and DVD-Audio is a long and disappointing tale that has far-reaching negative impact for the music and audio-video industry alike. In 1993 the domestic record sales, powered almost exclusively by Compact Disc, were near 33 billion dollars yearly. Today, nearly a decade and a half later domestic record sales have dropped to about $9 billion per year with an additional $3 billion per year for downloads and another $3 billion for ring tones. Unquestionably, the music business has lost a lot of its luster in a very short period of time and is dragging the audiophile market segment down the drain with them.

As a long-time Prince fan, I was lured into my home theater this Sunday afternoon to watch the half time show of the Super Bowl. Despite his many quirks, Prince is an amazing artist on many levels. His ability to play more than a dozen instruments, his prolific songwriting and his cross-generational appeal all make him one of the greatest musical entertainers and performers of our time. By my standards Prince ranks up there with the likes of Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis and John Coltrane as a twentieth century musical master.

Syd Barret, co founder of Pink Floyd has died at the age of 60. Barret founded Pink Floyd with fellow members Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright. He left the band and music industry in the early stages to live reclusively. Barret wrote many of first hits for Pink Floyd including the band’s 1967 album “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn”, as well as their first hits “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play”.

Billy Preston, the keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles, died Tuesday at 59. Preston's longtime manager, Joyce Moore, said Preston had been in a coma since November in a care facility and was taken to a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, Saturday after his condition deteriorated.

You’ve heard many times on the pages of AVRev.com about how the woes of the music industry can’t be placed solely on the shoulders of peer-to-peer file swapping or piracy. The fact that the compact disc is still a poor value was never more evident to me than when I was at the mega electronics store WOW! in Long Beach, California this weekend. This staggeringly large store features a fully stocked Tower Records/Video, along with the newly merged CompUSA/Good Guys! I went in to pick up some toner for my laser printer and, for some reason, the once familiar but long forgotten desire to browse the CD racks came over me. I realized that in my collection of “must have” music, I had a gaping hole. I didn’t have the Metallica CD … And Justice for All, and I wasn’t about to break out my worn-out cassette version or download the album from ...