|
|
|
I have been an audiophile for over 48 years and have been an avid reader of your magazine for as long as I can remember. I was a vinyl junkie, a quad vinyl junkie, a reel to reel fanatic, a laserdisc and beta aficionado and waited for the CD with baited breath ...only to be sorely disappointed by its total lack of "perfect sound forever," as promised. When I first heard SACD at my local HIGH end boutique, albeit in a stereo, single-layered format I was NOT impressed and therefore opted for Meridian's 800/861 with DVD-Audio upgrade (at major expense). At the time, it sounded MUCH better than SACD and so I invested mightily in 1200 DVD-As only to watch the format collapse. Then Sony decided to "invent" the hybrid disc, the players improved and admittedly, I came very late to the format by investing in first the OPPO, then the Parasound HALO and finally in the Marantz SA-11S2 player. Why I abandoned vinyl, initially, was because of wretched pressings (remember DYNAFLEX?) because ticks/pops did not naturally occur in music. Also, Vinyl was NOT archival and every time one placed the cartridge onto the platter, it "died" a little. What we have in SACD is an extremely versatile format, one that satisfies those who wish to play their recordings in ANY CD player (boombox, cars, etc) capable of both stereo playback (to satisfy those purists among us) and multi-channel fanatics. In the June issue of Stereophile wherein Mr. Tellig lambasted both the format and even when on to say that DSD- mastered CDs sounded worse than ordinarily replicated CDs, one of your reviewers reviewed the four disc set of Wagner's Gotterdammerung, which runs 4 hours and 21 minutes. I said to myself, if Analogue Productions were to press this expansive opera onto 45rpm vinyl, it would take approximately 17-18 sides to realize this endeavor. And taking a cue from Robert @ BIS Records, he would be able to press this opera on one single-layered SACD, but of course only at 16 bit/44.1 quality (but DSD mastered). Had all the energy in making the Vinyl Disc sound "audiophile" been put into the extremely versatile SACD, we would NOT be having this discussion. And in all fairness, when your magazine reviewed DVD-Audio way back when, you were utilizing a $400 Panasonic Player (the model # escapes me) to review the format.....No wonder it died a miserable death and no wonder Meridian was irked by this slight of their brilliantly executed 800/861. An Audiophile magazine serves many functions and it should offer unbiased reviews with hopefully the best equipment available (especially the Players). With so much wonderful equipment available in 2009 and so many wonderful SACDs available, it would be in your best interest, Mr. Atkinson, to give SACD another chance and to nuture further improvements in the format which has been allotted to Vinyl. And please put a muzzle on Mr. Tellig as his ignorance of all things SACD is POSITIVELY GRATING!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lets wait in hope the SACD format receive the support it deserve from this magazine.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Post by DSD May 16, 2009 (4 of 63)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DSD said:
Thanks for the links Kal, I do not believe anyone is doubting your support of both SACD and multichannel. The suspicion comes from contributions from other Stereophile writers and the editorial direction.
As I have said before your "Music In The Round" is an oasis in a vast wasteland.
Well remembered, Thankyou Kal.
|
|
|
Post by emaidel May 17, 2009 (6 of 63)
|
|
I too hope this letter will be beneficial to the SACD format, and to all of us here who are familiar with its very real benefits.
Magazines that offer opinions rarely ever accept criticism well, and often take the stance that they are right, and anyone who differs is wrong. Back in '92, while working as the VP of Sales and Marketing for Stanton Magnetics, I received a call from a young man at The Absolute Sound all but begging for a "sample" (read: "freebie") of the W.O.S. Collector's Series 100 cartridge since many of the magazine's readers told the TAS people that to not review the cartridge would be a grievous disservice (the cartridge had been well reviewed in Europe, and was selling very well there, but only so-so in the U.S.). I sent a sample off, and then received another phone call stating that Harry Pearson was "excited" about the cartridge and wondered if he too could have a sample/freebie, and so off went another.
The review was horrible. The reviewer thought it was one of the worst sounding cartridges he'd ever heard (and even disputed the magazine's earlier, and very positive, review of an older model - the 881-S - on which the Collector's Series model was based) and went so far as to criticize many aspects of the cartridge that had little to do with its sound, such as the manner in which the stylus assembly is held in place. He dreamt up a term called "vibrational torque" that he claimed all Stanton cartridges were prone to; claimed that all Stanton cartridges were also susceptible to feedback, and that, as the volume increased on a record, the stereo image collapsed (a phenomenon none of us at the company could ever duplicate).
My initial reaction was one of absolute fury, wondering why the editors chose an avowed "Stanton-hater" to review this cartridge. I, as well as members of the company's engineering department resonded to the review as diplomatically as we possibly could, and, as is customary for the magazine, our response was printed along with the review. Unfortunately, so too was the reviewer's response to ours.
I stated that, as Stanton cartridges at the time were the number one cartridge in the DJ marketplace, in which music is played at ridiculously loud levels, with equally ridiculous amounts of bass, had they been susceptible to feedback, they would never have gained such prominence in that industry. The reviewer's response was that "whatever DJ's do with a cartridge has no place on the pages of 'The Absoute Sound.'" In short, he was right, we were wrong, and that was that. Sales of the cartridge ground to a halt, and that too was that. We should have sued!
I fear it's going to be the same thing with Stereophile and SACD.
|
|
|
|
|
|
emaidel said:
I too hope this letter will be beneficial to the SACD format, and to all of us here who are familiar with its very real benefits.
...
I fear it's going to be the same thing with Stereophile and SACD.
You think we should sue? lol.
Senor emaidel, your postings are always so very polite, but pessimistic in nature. I say put on a SACD and cheer up. Stereophile shmereophile. It's just a printed magazine - a dying breed that will almost certainly be outlived by both CD and SACD.
All they have done, in this rather embarrassing episode, is confirm what people here have been saying all along ... that they are thoroughly biased against SACD. I had no idea - I haven't read their epistle for about a decade. The editor seems out of touch, clinging to the past, stuck in the doldrum of declining CD sales, and mired in a lo-rez world. They've painted themselves into a corner, and the only place left for them to move is further into the past: What's that? More cartridge reviews?? Aye carumbah.
|
|
|
|
|
|
rammiepie said:
if Analogue Productions were to press this expansive opera onto 45rpm vinyl, it would take approximately 17-18 sides to realize this endeavor.
hilarious!
SACD is the future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thank you for your frank comments.
Regarding Stereophile's coverage of DVD-A, SACD, and universal players, you can find all of our reviews at http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/ . Almost 50 products are covered, not including standalone D/A processors, which hardly suggests we have been ignoring high-resolution playback.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
|
|
|
Post by michi May 17, 2009 (10 of 63)
|
|
Senor emaidel, your postings are always so very polite, but pessimistic in nature. I say put on a SACD and cheer up. Stereophile shmereophile. It's just a printed magazine - a dying breed that will almost certainly be outlived by both CD and SACD.
You know, I've been ragged on for my pessimistic posts over on AA; so take it with a grain of salt but i've got to agree with emaidel...
People still go to Stereophile as a source of expertise and knowledge. Whether it's truly accurate or not, there will be folks in decision-making capacities at recording/publishing companies who will state, "No, don't do it on SACD, even Stereophile has said that that's a dead format."
People aren't going to parse words, they're not going to say, "Oh, one of their reviewers said it's a dead format but that's just one of many, and the magazine itself holds no bias towards or against SACD, and what one guy says shouldn't dictate whether or not we publish this music on SACD"...
They'll just say "Stereophile says its dead."
So no matter how you look at it, it *is* another nail in SACD's coffin (far premature, imo..) and, oddly, in my opinion, just when the format has been picking up some steam again in the last year or so.
We're seeing new hardware come out, as if the hardware manufacturers never got the memo that SACD is dead. (Will the XA5400 be Sony's last SACD player? -- probably, at this point.)
Someone over at Stereophile could actually undo any damage done by Tellig and by misleading titles, by one of their reviewers or editors simply writing a "Now wait a minute, don't give up on SACD just yet" sort of article.
But I wouldn't hold my breath on that. We can only hope that whatever rationale record companies have had to release SACDs in the last year, continues, and that they actually take a look at sites like this (doubt it) and realize that there is still demand.
As usual in these cases, I hope I'm wrong. But as emaidel indicated, these magazines do have a lot of sway. That can't be denied.
But it certainly wouldn't hurt them very much to throw us SACD enthusiasts a bone. The format can co-exist with vinyl. But I think they're instrumental in the path that SACD takes at this point - and to that end, I'd say, guys, please, give it a chance.
|
|
