Show sings praises of digital audio
LAS VEGAS — Ten thousand songs in your pocket. Millions of tunes on the Internet at your fingertips. And books on tape — they’re going down the path of vinyl records.
Welcome to the new world of digital audio.
Though the first portable MP3 player debuted in 1999, most personal music libraries still consist of piles of CDs, and relatively few people listen to digitally recorded radio talk shows and books.
The consumer electronics industry is doing its best to change that, there being serious lucre in prodding people to join the digital audio revolution as long as it’s convenient.
At this week’s International Consumer Electronics Show, it was impossible to walk more than a few feet in the 1.5-million-square feet of exhibition space without stumbling over a digital audio equipment display.
New products in the category included a music system from upstart Sonos Inc., which lets you play your music all over your home, even different songs in different rooms, and control it all wirelessly from a handheld device.
The growing satellite radio audience got a new crop of digital receivers to sample, and digital audio veterans such as Creative Labs Inc. and iRiver America Inc. also debuted new portable players.
Newcomers also mounted the digital audio bandwagon, including camera maker Olympus, which unveiled a media player that can take photos and play slideshows and digital music.
“The digital music devices and accessories, whether they’re headsets or wearable clips or necklaces that play music — the whole category is just exploding,” said Tara Dunion, spokeswoman for the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the show.
Digital audio isn’t limited to music. Many MP3-enabled gadgets can also play audio versions of books, such as those from Audible.com.
And with Internet radio stations rising in popularity, iRiver introduced a portable player that can access content from AudioFeast, an Internet radio service provider.
Digital audio is growing as quickly as PCs in the 1980s, Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday in kicking off the annual trade show. By 2010, all of our audio will be digital, he predicted.
Apple Computer Inc. — the company widely credited for invigorating digital audio with its iPod player and online iTunes Music Store — was conspicuously absent from the show and will likely have its own set of products to announce at next week’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco.