iPod Killed The Stereo Star - Almost

iPod Killed The Stereo Star - Almost

In A First Since The Beatles, Stereo Gets Easier, And Stylish

ZURICH, Switzerland, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- With the iPod ascendant, with hi-fi sales plummeting 16% annually (source: Consumer Electronics Association), and with critics predicting the death of quality audio, a few innovators are challenging the iPod generation to experience something better than cheap headphones and tinny computer speakers.

The new lure in sound for the home is style and simplicity, with stalwarts like Yamaha to startups like Geneva Lab hiding sophisticated hi-fi in one streamlined box. They have far fewer doodads, simplifying the stack of components that's gotten progressively complex since The Beatles popularized stereo recordings 40 years ago.

Innovators say just as digital technology stores big collections on tiny hard drives, full sound images can come from simpler stereo systems with smarter digital innards.

Even iPod creator Steve Jobs sees demand for quality sound. Apple's iPod Hi-Fi is getting good reviews.

Meanwhile, upstart Geneva Lab has won raves. "It's a great audio solution for those of us tired of traditional multi-component stereos and all the cabling and speaker positioning that goes with them," Knight Ridder's John Paczkowski says of the "concise, elegant" Geneva Sound System.

"I'm hearing things in my music I've never heard before," says Richmond, VA consumer Clarissa Frayser of her one-box Geneva Sound System in bright piano-lacquer red. "And it looks great!"

iPod authority iLounge.com says to ditch "the old AV system's separate components," as Geneva Sound creates a feeling of being "inside a theater with a band performing in front of you."

Parallel to hi-fi's clutter problems, Asian and European consumers are resisting new home theatre 5 and 7 speaker systems. iLounge also tested Geneva Sound for movies, finding sound effects "hyper-realistic in their accuracy - you will literally imagine the visuals in front of you as they happen, and hear every event moving in 3-D space."

Home decor is also newly important in consumer electronics. Sony now launches products at home design shows. Likewise, reviewers are praising Geneva Sound for "an artistry that belies the device's complex innards, crafting a piece that would look more at home in a Donald Judd exhibition than a Magnolia audition room. And its sound is, in a word, astonishing," says Siliconvalley.com.

Source: Geneva Lab Corporation

CONTACT: George Emerson of Building Blocks Communications for Geneva Lab
Corporation, +1-416-588-8514, george@genevalab.com

Web site: http://www.genevalab.com/images.html

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