Post by hiredfox March 10, 2014 (71 of 352)
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Hopefully I am not a lone voice in wanting this site to stay focussed solely on SACD to the exclusion of all else. Many of us have expensive dedicated players that have been refined for that format alone. Broadening the scope of the site to appease those who use ubiquitous universal players will add another layer of unwelcome confusion to cataloguing and purchasing and for no benefit at all for folk like me. It is difficult enough these days trying to find out if a new SACD has PCM origins or not. With few exceptions - usually to do with repertory gaps - I now buy only native DSD recordings insofar as this can be ascertained.
Do the simple things well is the key to all great works.
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canonical said:
lol. Shifting production to Blu-ray???? That's funny.
I think you misread my abbreviation ‘Blu-Ray’, and your lol is therefore totally misplaced.
Furthermore I wonder why you are so sure that “no one in the music industry is going to be 'shifting production' to Blu-ray, unless they fancy their label appearing in the bargain basement bins, and like the sound of bankruptcy”. Wishful thinking?
Maybe you are not aware of efforts by major labels to win public, including SACD buyers, over to Blu-Ray Audio with old wine in new sacs. I am not up front to buy, but things may change.
One should not underestimate their power. They still dominate de CD market with the best musicians and orchestras under contract; they dispose of an enormous (musically spoken) high quality back catalogue, they entertain strong links with the media (advertising income) and the broadcasters.
Why, do you think, has the Norwegian label 2L moved to issue double discs SACD/BD-A? They look to the future instead of nurturing pre conceived ideas.
Finally, how much of the digital purchases are in MP3 format?
I have no personal stake in Blue-Ray audio, I would be quite happy, like hiredfox, with SACD format only. I have enough for the rest of my life. But some keep their eyes wider open than others.
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Adrian Cue said:
I think you misread my abbreviation ‘Blu-Ray’, and your lol is therefore totally misplaced.
What was there to misread?
> Furthermore I wonder why you are so sure that “no one in the music industry is going to be 'shifting production' to Blu-ray,
> unless they fancy their label appearing in the bargain basement bins, and like the sound of bankruptcy”.
As Steve Guttenberg says, ... Blu-ray audio is just the latest in a series of attempts at doing hi-res audio in a video player that have all flopped, ... the offering of titles is close to pathetic, ... it is retrograde and backwards for SACD users who have pure DSD to play with ... it's incompatible with the prevailing CD standard (unlike SACD) ... you can't play it in the car ... and how many audiophiles listens to music through their TV anyway???
> One should not underestimate their power. They still dominate de CD market with the best musicians > and orchestras under contract; they dispose of an enormous (musically spoken) high quality back
> catalogue, they entertain strong links with the media (advertising income) and the broadcasters.
Just as a rain-check: The music industry is in massive decline. They can barely sell CDs today. Downloads are shrinking. Low quality streaming is the new thing, offering peanuts to labels and musicians. That is the new reality. There is sadly almost nothing the music industry can do about it. Worse, for the classical market, there are usually dozens of close substitutes of the same piece available via the high quality back catalog you refer to ... which casts a huge shadow over the industry. As in, very few people are going to pay $10 for a new recording of Tchaikovsky No 1 when they can buy a close substitute for 99c from the back catalogue. Or get it free.
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Adrian Cue said:
Why, do you think, has the Norwegian label 2L moved to issue double discs SACD/BD-A? They look to the future instead of nurturing pre conceived ideas.
Is that seriously your best offer? Presumably, because for a small label at the ends of the earth, ... the cost of production is smaller than the cost of distribution, so they dump two discs into a box, just like many film companies sell the Blu-ray version with the DVD.
And why do you think the major labels ... like Universal, EMI, Warner/Virgin ... have all started selling SACDs again ... especially in Asian markets where SACD is most popular?
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canonical said:
And why do you think the major labels ... like Universal, EMI, Warner/Virgin ... have all started selling SACDs again ... especially in Asian markets where SACD is most popular?
maybe you should read the rest before answering
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Post by Claude March 10, 2014 (76 of 352)
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Before reorganising this site, it might be better to wait a bit how BD-A develops. It's hardly an established format. Those labels who release them seem to be testing the market.
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tailspn said:
Carl, perhaps you're focusing on your experience of traditional applications of data processing. I don't disagree with what you say as it applies to the data processing world, but that processing is step(s) beyond what I'm representing.
The two levels of DSD, ones and zeros, are not values, they're states of a two level bounded system. Nor is DSD a representation of bits of information. It's the serial (analog) density of those bits, not their scalar weight (they have none) ...You, and everyone who confuses DSD with a digital representation are over thinking the process.
...
And it's why it has so many adherents saying it sounds/feels like analog.
Tom, you are incorrectly pigeon-holing me. I am capable of thinking beyond data processing to information theory itself and to the very definitions of digital and analog.
If you do not like the term "value" and prefer the term "state", that's fine. But, it is purely semantic and it changes nothing. If something is represented completely in exactly two discrete states, it just ain't analog or close to it. Don't want to call them bits and want to call them something else? Fine, but why? Again, nothing is changed except the semantics. If it walks like a bit and quacks like a bit or otherwise has all the attributes of a bit, it must be a bit, as digital information theory defines it.
As I said, the fact that there is no "value" there in each sample also changes nothing. There is still a single piece of crucial information in each sample - plus/minus, yes/no, zero/one, up/down or whatever you want to call it. Looking beyond one sample to the density of states of multiple samples also changes nothing. The individual samples are still discrete entities, each bounded, as you say, to one of two, and only two, possible states.
If listeners feel that perceptually DSD recording and playback systems sound more like analog, I am not going to disagree. They are entitled to do so. But, that does not change the fundamental digital nature of DSD, nor do arguments that attempt to describe DSD itself as something other than a digital system. DSD must inevitably go through a digital to analog conversion - a DAC - to be audible. Not to confuse matters, but I am aware that theoretically a DSD DAC could be just a capacitor, but that is still a digital to analog conversion, poor performance issues of that configuration aside.
Yes, there is a certain elegance to the way DSD operates in the digital domain using the shorthand of one-bit, very high sampling rate representation. But, that in itself does not inherently guarantee musical sound that is closer to analog, or perceptually to the sound of live music. The proof of that is in the listening, and we each might have our own take on the result. Personally, I feel that there are countless much, much bigger issues in audio than the sound of DSD vs. Hi Rez PCM. I am quite happy to play either.
Tom, we simply are not on the same wavelength here. And, I think we must respectfully agree to disagree.
Best wishes,
Carl
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Post by tailspn March 10, 2014 (78 of 352)
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Fitzcaraldo215 said:
DSD must inevitably go through a digital to analog conversion - a DAC - to be audible. Not to confuse matters, but I am aware that theoretically a DSD DAC could be just a capacitor, but that is still a digital to analog conversion, poor performance issues of that configuration aside.
Carl, I'd like to thank you for providing the opportunity to repeat my year of research three times here, essentially saying the same thing. DSD is analog. To the degree that my findings informed, and enlightened anyone here interested in the reasons DSD sounds as it does, you've helped that immensely.
We will have to respectfully agree to disagree. Bit I did/do want to make my point to the conversation of this thread that SACD is the optical DSD delivery media (again, regardless of the formats used in the contained recording), and IMO, should not be lumped or diluted with delivery products that use an inferior format on sa-cd.net.
To your belief that DSD requires a DAC (digital to analog conversion), therefore it's a digital format, the new PS Audio Direct Stream "DAC" is an implementation of Ted Smith's outstanding sounding original research and design:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/8/80732.html
of taking a DSD bit stream (Pulse Density Modulation 1-bit/two level), amplifying it with high speed opamps, and passing it through a passive low pass filter. For DSD bitstreaam input, no pre-conditioning, no decoding, no 1's and 0's, no digital. Just the application of the principle DSD is based upon, semantics aside, it's ANALOG!
Best,
Tom
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canonical said:
The music industry is in massive decline.
I rest your case
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Post by steviev March 10, 2014 (80 of 352)
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tailspn said:
....I did/do want to make my point to the conversation of this thread that SACD is the optical DSD delivery media (again, regardless of the formats used in the contained recording), and IMO, should not be lumped or diluted with delivery products that use an inferior format on sa-cd.net.
To your belief that DSD requires a DAC (digital to analog conversion),
PCM Blu-Ray an inferior format? Them's fightin' words.
And nah, it's still digital. It's in the title itself: "I built a DAC." A chip's still gotta be there to interpret a series of zeroes and ones and convert them into voltages, and those zeroes and ones are discrete moments in time, not continuously variable, even if they come real close. And isn't this infinitesimal division of time getting into Zeno's Paradox territory?
I'd like SA-CD.net to include pure-audio Blu-Rays because I tend to miss a lot of multichannel Blu-Ray new releases and it bums me out. Plus, I've got a couple hot reviews burning in me, and one of them's fairly negative, of a couple 2L Blu-Rays. Negative reviews are ever so fun to write, especially all the "not helpful" boos and hisses they inevitably garner.
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