Storer Cable To Offer Thirty Channels of Digital Music

By Paul Moffett

Storer Cable thinks you should be able to listen to CD-quality music of your choice over your own carefully-assembled system, without those terrible intrusions you find on the radio - like commercials and deejays.

No deejays? No commercials?

The Storer company plans to offer DMX, a music service with thirty channels of digital stereo music -- everything from opera and two classic channels to alternative rock, world beat, Latin, current rock, Fifties and Sixties, easy listening, New Age, instrumentals, urban, blues, reggae, show tunes, contemporary Christian and on and on. All in all, the thirty channels are divided into nine different musical groups.

No deejays?

Storer has been selling a business version of this service for a while, according to Storer representative Gary Urban. The music is sent via satellite from a California-based company named Digital Music Express. Storer thinks you'll like the idea a lot, and they plan to offer it to their residential customers beginning about the middle of March.

No deejays? How am I gonna know who that great singer was on that tune I didn't know?

The system consists of two separate units. There is a receiving box, which looks rather like a small EQ, with a video cable input and a pair of RCA cables to plug into the auxiliary input of your receiver.

Then there is the remote control device that you point at the incoming signal box to change channels. The same remote has an LCD screen that will display who's performing the tune on the channel you're currently listening to, what's the name of the album, who wrote the song and the record ID number.

Well, I can certainly do without the commercials, but since there aren't any, there must be an additional charge.

For a monthly fee of $11.95, Storer customers can get all thirty channels. The remote, called a DJ, is included in the monthly rental fee.

The installation fee for the service hasn't been set as yet. Early promotional efforts are likely to include a reduced installation cost.

For more information about DMX, call the Storer company at 448-7750.