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Hello all, this is my first post. Sorry if this comment/question has been offered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere. Anyway, here goes (and please correct me if I'm wrong in any of the following observations/assumptions:
From the stuff I've seen online and in stores about the different audio formats it appears that SACD is the natural successor to CD, being more practical and more popular than DVD-A. However, CD continues to rule the market, at least in the Pop/Rock arena, even thought SACD is 10 years old.
I can only conclude that CD continues to rule because *the recording industry is allowing it*
This is regrettable. I'm seeing quite a few young adults passing on disk altogether and going back to vinyl because of a supposed better sound than the average CD.
Past media was always discarded in favor of the new; eg, Victrola cylynder '78s, 8 track, cassette, VHS, but *SACD isn't being allowed by the industry to replace CD*. Why?
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Post by DSD October 4, 2009 (2 of 13)
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boompuhtuh said:
Hello all, this is my first post. Sorry if this comment/question has been offered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere. Anyway, here goes (and please correct me if I'm wrong in any of the following observations/assumptions:
From the stuff I've seen online and in stores about the different audio formats it appears that SACD is the natural successor to CD, being more practical and more popular than DVD-A. However, CD continues to rule the market, at least in the Pop/Rock arena, even thought SACD is 10 years old.
I can only conclude that CD continues to rule because *the recording industry is allowing it*
This is regrettable. I'm seeing quite a few young adults passing on disk altogether and going back to vinyl because of a supposed better sound than the average CD.
Past media was always discarded in favor of the new; eg, Victrola cylynder '78s, 8 track, cassette, VHS, but *SACD isn't being allowed by the industry to replace CD*. Why?
1) Economics, it costs more to manufacture a SACD/CD hybrid than a single layer CD.
2) Studies that purport to prove that SACD and CD sound the same.
3) The general public's attitude that multichannel is for movies and stereo is for music.
4) The general public believing SACD is only a multichannel disc (if they have even heard of it at all) and not knowing that is also offers high resolution Stereo as well.
5) Some SACDs existing that sound little better than CDs due to the low resolution of their master tapes or poor recording techniques.
6) The entire industry not switching to recording in DSD only.
In my humble opinion it is DSD recorded SACDs or well make SACDs from analog masters that really show the SACD format to be the thing of absolute beauty it is with a realism I have only experience with live acoustic music.
If every person who loves classical music could experience "The War Dance" from Respighi's "Belkis, Queen of Sheba" Respighi: Church Windows etc. - Ashkenazy on SACD I don't think single layer Classical CDs would ever be able to be sold at any price.
The same goes for "Lady Jane" from The Rolling Stones: Aftermath
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I want add one more reason, a unexpected sabotage from Sony Music to the SACD format, that seems favor of the BR.
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Post by Johnno October 4, 2009 (4 of 13)
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FullRangeMan said:
I want add one more reason, a unexpected sabotage from Sony Music to the SACD format, that seems favor of the BR.
There is one obvious additional reason, if you are not new to record collecting: the need to buy another player and, of course, if you have decided to move from stereo to multichannel, extra equipment as well. For many people -- including a number of my friends -- the extra hardware cost has ruled against making a switch to SACD.
For those same people, the same situation will apply to Bluray.
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Perhaps part of it is simply that it's much easier to find space for two speakers than six.
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Post by Claude October 5, 2009 (6 of 13)
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CDs still rule, but are on a fast decline. Downloads will be the dominant music format in a couple of years, IMHO.
The main reason for this is that less people listen to music while sitting in front of speakers. In the evenings at home, they rather watch movies, TV or play video games. Music is mainly listened to outdoors on portable players, in the car, or as background music at home.
This answers the question "Past media was always discarded in favor of the new, but *SACD isn't being allowed by the industry to replace CD*. Why?"
The new format are downloads! They are much more convenient than CDs for the way people now listen to music. That's why it is difficult to establish an improved disc format as a mass medium.
But downloads also offer a chance to audiophiles. They don't need to be lossy. There can be lossless, hi-rez and even multichannel downloads, and they don't need to become a mass selling format in order to be a viable business.
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Claude said:
CDs still rule, but are on a fast decline.
I think that's right.
In the mass market, that's driven by a switch to downloads for convenience etc.
And in the audiophile hardware market, where quality matters, I don't think the CD format is seriously considered to be an audiophile product anymore. Standalone CD players are becoming quite unusual. High-end companies like Mark Levinson and Krell have completely dropped standalone CD and moved to SACD. Indeed, for standalone players, CD/SACD players are becoming almost the norm on the hardware side ... just have a look at the amazing amount of product coming out at:
/showthread/13357//y?page=last
Just in the last few months, new SACD players from:
Cary, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, EMM Labs, McIntosh, Denon, Lexicon, Oppo, Luxman, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Teac, T+A, Esoteric ...
Amazing amounts of new goodies.
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Post by hiredfox October 5, 2009 (8 of 13)
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canonical said:
I think that's right.
In the mass market, that's driven by a switch to downloads for convenience etc.
And in the audiophile hardware market, where quality matters, I don't think the CD format is seriously considered to be an audiophile product anymore. Standalone CD players are becoming quite unusual. High-end companies like Mark Levinson and Krell have completely dropped standalone CD and moved to SACD. Indeed, for standalone players, CD/SACD players are becoming almost the norm on the hardware side ... just have a look at the amazing amount of product coming out at:
/showthread/13357//y?page=last
Just in the last few months, new SACD players from:
Cary, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, EMM Labs, McIntosh, Denon, Lexicon, Oppo, Luxman, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Teac, T+A, Esoteric ...
Amazing amounts of new goodies.
Do you think they have woken up at last to the fact that most of the major orchestras are preferring to work in DSD / SACD and that there are well over 5000 titles available in SACD?
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canonical said:
I think that's right.
In the mass market, that's driven by a switch to downloads for convenience etc.
And in the audiophile hardware market, where quality matters, I don't think the CD format is seriously considered to be an audiophile product anymore. Standalone CD players are becoming quite unusual. High-end companies like Mark Levinson and Krell have completely dropped standalone CD and moved to SACD. Indeed, for standalone players, CD/SACD players are becoming almost the norm on the hardware side ... just have a look at the amazing amount of product coming out at:
/showthread/13357//y?page=last
Just in the last few months, new SACD players from:
Cary, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, EMM Labs, McIntosh, Denon, Lexicon, Oppo, Luxman, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Teac, T+A, Esoteric ...
Amazing amounts of new goodies.
VERY FEW SACD PLAYERS FEATURE MCH WHICH SOUNDS FAR BETTER THAN STEREO
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boompuhtuh said:
Hello all, this is my first post. Sorry if this comment/question has been offered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere. Anyway, here goes (and please correct me if I'm wrong in any of the following observations/assumptions:
From the stuff I've seen online and in stores about the different audio formats it appears that SACD is the natural successor to CD, being more practical and more popular than DVD-A. However, CD continues to rule the market, at least in the Pop/Rock arena, even thought SACD is 10 years old.
I can only conclude that CD continues to rule because *the recording industry is allowing it*
This is regrettable. I'm seeing quite a few young adults passing on disk altogether and going back to vinyl because of a supposed better sound than the average CD.
Past media was always discarded in favor of the new; eg, Victrola cylynder '78s, 8 track, cassette, VHS, but *SACD isn't being allowed by the industry to replace CD*. Why?
I wouldn't like to say that I'm correcting an observation of yours, but from my experience, I'm definately not able say that DVD-As are any less - or more - practical than SACDs. I like both formats equally, and would be perfectly happy for both to stay. I don't have access to statistics, but could imagine that SACD has had more sales success than DVD-A.
That both hi-res formats are not more widespread/popular, I would put down to the following:-
1) A large majority of the public are not bothered about high quality audio.
2) The belief that the DVD is a video format and CD an audio format.
I have a relatively small circle of friends, but even including work colleagues, I don't know of anyone that is particularly interested in listening to music. A great pity. Sure; there would be quite a number that like to "hear" music, but not what I would define as actively. I could reel-off a number of similar stories, but when I recently mentioned to one colleague that I like to listen to music, he replied by saying, "You mean you sit there in an evening and just listen to music?" How do you answer that, apart from just saying yes!
When I mentioned to another colleague about hi-res audio formats, he said that MP3 is just as good, because it's digital.
I'm still buying both formats, and expect them to provide enormous pleasure in the coming years. If Blu-ray "takes over", doubtless I'll get into that format also. At least Blu-ray offers easy access to hi-res audio and video in one format.
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