Post by cjv123 May 29, 2009 (21 of 61)
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Hi, newbie here. Before I spend some coin in the interests of my nostalgia, I have an introductory question. When an SACD is made from the original Quad tapes, is the content stored as 4.0 or does someone mix in a center for 5.0/1?
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Post by Peter May 29, 2009 (22 of 61)
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cjv123 said:
Hi, newbie here. Before I spend some coin in the interests of my nostalgia, I have an introductory question. When an SACD is made from the original Quad tapes, is the content stored as 4.0 or does someone mix in a center for 5.0/1?
The Pentatone RQR series is 4.0 as recorded, and needs no muckin' abaht to "improve" the results......
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Post by cjv123 May 29, 2009 (23 of 61)
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Peter said:
The Pentatone RQR series is 4.0 as recorded, and needs no muckin' abaht to "improve" the results......
good news- i simply detest the center channel and choose to not have one in my system.
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If anyone bothered to read the initial reaction to the Chicago Transit Authority's first album released by Rhino handmade in DTS 4.0, the overwhelming consensus was that it should've been released in 96/24 DVD-A........and this on Rhino's own website........so what do they do? Release another treasure in DTS but with the hogwash 96/24 again attached. DTS played back is decoded at 16/48 on DVD players and even when upsampled the best one can hope for is 16/96........Why, OH WHY? The Queen of Soul certainly deserves better.......Or better yet, release it on blu-ray audio in DTS Master Audio since Warners, god forbid, is SACDphobic.
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Post by DSD July 6, 2010 (26 of 61)
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cjv123 said:
good news- i simply detest the center channel and choose to not have one in my system.
I still do not know whether a centre channel speaker is worth having . It is supposed to be essential for Home Cinema only ?
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Post by wolf359 July 7, 2010 (28 of 61)
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Paul Clark said:
The Best Of Aretha Franklin
Aretha's out-of-print 1973 Quadraphonic album released for the first time ever on DTS DVD
Features four channels of 24-bit, 96 kHz audio
http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/aretha-franklin-the-best-of-aretha-franklin-quadraphonic-mix-handmade
Paul
Thanks for the heads up on this release
I remember having this as a CD4 disc back in the 70's. How could I forget the naff sleeve !!!
Taking a trip to Rhinos site I ordered this without thinking. While there I noticed that someone had come up with a list of WEA quad releases from that era. what got me is that there is an oblique reference to this site and the almost 6500 discs available as SACD in the comments, This set me thinking about the viability of these DTS releases. The ordinary punter is likely have the albums as RBCD anyway, The SACD releases far outnumber the DVDA's These I think are not playable on standard RBCD systems so they can only appeal to a small number of buyers overall so what is the target market? I also think that they are substandard compared to SACD reproduction. I figure that Rhino realise that there is a multichannel market to be taken advantage of but the internal politics of Warner releasing SACD make that impossible so we are stuck with a substandard version of the release. However I would rather have this type of disc thant the stereo only version as per Mofi and either is preferable to the standard RBCD of course. for me seeing the quadradisc logo again after all these years is pure nostalgia, roll on the many others that WEA released at the time, Just realised that I am the target market!!!
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Peter said:
...whose lists are copyright!
Just as an FYI, the general rule under US law is that you can't copyright a list. For instance, take a look at the Supreme Court's opinion in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service (holding that you can't copyright a phone book).
This isn't a legal opinion, of course. Simply an off-the-cuff comment, and should not be regarded as such.
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wolf359 said:
These I think are not playable on standard RBCD systems so they can only appeal to a small number of buyers overall so what is the target market? I also think that they are substandard compared to SACD reproduction. I figure that Rhino realise that there is a multichannel market to be taken advantage of but the internal politics of Warner releasing SACD make that impossible so we are stuck with a substandard version of the release.
The entire purpose of these Rhino Handmade quad releases is to appeal to the surround-sound market, not (necessarily) to the audiophile market. One only needs to look at some of the flame wars which have taken place on this very site to see that a significant portion of the audiophile community is defiantly stereo only. So if Rhino were to consider SACD releases of any of these titles, they would have to be prepared to deal with the fact that so many voices would be bad-mouthing their products unless the DSD stereo layer was somehow hugely superior to the stereo PCM layer, which of course would all be way off the point - that being the quad mix on the multichannel layer.
Also, what you call "internal politics of Warner" is more likely simple economics. In order to avoid scathing reviews, an SACD reissue of an old recording would have be a direct analog-to-DSD remaster for it to have any hope at all of being received well. Since Warner does not own any DSD hardware, they would have to either purchase or rent such equipment, or else contract out the entire project to someone else who does. All three of these options are so expensive that they could easily wipe out any of the already slim profit margins for these releases. Not to metion the fact that pressing the actual SACDs would have to be contracted out to Sony, who own both of the only SACD pressing plants in the world. Remember, these are small-quantity, limited edition titles only available exclusively through the Rhino website. With no listings for them at Amazon, et al, most people will never even learn that these exist, let alone buy a copy. Rhino is hardly even trying to create much awareness among the general public in order to boost sales.
As for the DTS vs other formats issue, DTS is clearly the smartest choice. DVD-A can deliver 24/96 stereo easily enough, but surround automatically requires some form of compression. MLP was the DVD-A standard, but outside those of us with OPPO brand players, the equipment to decode it is extremely rare. Blu-Ray is catching on quickly, but is hardly universal, and I'm sure many people with blu-ray players were only interested in the picture quality, and have not necessarily upgraded their sound systems to handle the lossless formats.
DTS 96/24 is, in fact, higher quality that standard DTS, although you need a decoder which can handle it. Feeding DTS 96/24 into a standard DTS decoder will give you standard DTS sound quality but no better. Digital Theater Systems has never claimed it to be lossless, but it's certainly very close. Even standard DTS delivers 20-bit resolution (not 16-bit as others have claimed) so you're getting better-than-CD quality in any case.
The DTS 96/24 signal can be carried by any digital output from ANY DVD player, regardless of whether that player can decode it. This means coax or optical connectors; no HDMI required, and the only real question is whether the receiver can decode the 96/24 signal, or just the standard DTS. So by choosing this format, Rhino knew that they had a product which the largest possible number of consumers would be able to use.
In addition to the Chicago disc, I have a couple of the Genesis CD+DVD reissues, which contain DTS 96/24 surround mixes. I haven't heard any Genesis on SACD, but those discs have received mixed reviews for sound quality. I get the impression that the SACDs simply don't sound any better than DTS, and I'm not willing to spend all then necessary extra money which would be required to make the comparison. So I, for one, have and will continue to enjoy these releases as they are, and not worry about whether they could have been better.
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