On Tuesday, Blockbuster decided to withdraw its offer to purchase Circuit City Inc.  Back in April Blockbuster proposed a deal for which they would buy Circuit City shares for $6 to $8, for an average total of $1 billion.

Krell Industries, Inc has announced the initial shipments of the Papa Dock power amplifier. The Papa Dock is a dedicated power amplifier for the Krell KID iPod dock.  Based on classic Krell amplifier technology, the Papa Dock mates directly with the KID and supplies an impressive 150 watts of power.  Coupled together, the Krell KID/Papa Dock pair work as one to deliver audiophile performance to any iPod listener. 

Canton has expanded its Chrono line of value-oriented high-performance loudspeakers with two new models, the three-way Chrono 511 DC tower and the compact Chrono 501 on-wall speaker. The new models become the largest and smallest models in the lineup, which now consists of six full-range models and a powered subwoofer.

Blue Ray Technologies, America's first indie Blu-ray disc manufacturing plant, is now becoming the largest indie Blue-ray disc mastering facility in the U.S., according to BRT founder and chairman Erick Hansen.

Warner Home Video releases four Jazz fan favorites - Bird, Pete Kelly's Blues, Blues in the Night, Round Midnight on July 22 on DVD.  No word on a Blu-ray release at this time.  For Jazz fans out there these releases on DVD have been a long time coming.

MCE Technologies has done what Apple appears to be resistant in doing.  MCe has released not only a 2x Blu-ray burner, but now a 6x Blu-ray Recorder Drive that is compatible with Mac Pro and Power Mac G5 computers.  Recently Panasonic had announced 6x burnable media, so being able to utilize the burner's full capacity should not be long from now.

Guitar Center is pleased to announce the next installment of Guitar Center Sessions: An evening of dialogue and insight with Dave Mustaine. This exclusive event is powered by Marshall amps and will be taking place on July 10 at the Guitar Center in Hollywood, CA and is free and open to the public.

ONKYO Corporation has announced that it will release its first Blu-ray Disc Player for the international market in late 2008. This player is designed to partner with Onkyo’s high-definition A/V receivers equipped with full HDMI processing of 1080p video and decoding of Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD™ Master Audio surround sound formats.

Yamaha unveiled the YSP-3050, the latest in its award-winning line of Digital Sound Projectors which focus audio signals into precisely controlled and directed “beams” that provide true multi-channel surround sound from a single component. The YPS-3050 fits neatly underneath a flat-panel television and gives consumers a space-efficient option to installing multiple speakers throughout a room for immersive audio for watching movies, television and sports programming. 

While not a groundbreaking release, Disney will be releasing the entire trilogy of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga on Blu-ray this September.  The set will encompass all six originally individually released discs.  Now new material will be on these discs.  This is a straight repacking of the original releases.  The set will carry a retail price of $82.99.